


Yours, forever and always

by Charlieboy2107



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Character Death, F/F, F/M, Multi, Soulmates, Star-crossed, Superheroes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-03
Updated: 2019-02-16
Packaged: 2019-07-24 20:21:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 29
Words: 67,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16182473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Charlieboy2107/pseuds/Charlieboy2107
Summary: Marinette has started to get dreams about the lives of past miraculous holders.





	1. Eternal love

Chapter 1: 

“Chat, the pharaoh is constructing a pyramid that he says will touch the land of the gods, what if Hawkmoth somehow-“  
Chat ran a hand calmly down Ladybug’s arm “I have spoken with my swami, and he confirmed that future Ladybug’s and Chat Noir’s are destined to be drawn together just as you and I”.  
He uses the placement of his hands on her waist to spin Ladybug to face him “we are written in the stars my love, not even death will be able to keep me from finding you in my next life.”  
Chat touches the tip of his pointer finger to Ladybug’s chin so her eyes meet his gaze. Smiling weakly, Ladybug lifts herself up to meet his lips with hers and Chat melts into the kiss. Chat’s hands roam up her body and move to comb through her hair when Ladybug gasps and jolts away, her eyes wide. Chat frowns, his gaze trailing down her body to where she now clutched her adomenon.   
“Chat-“ she whispered softly as she pulls her hands away, now stained in blood to reveal a tip of a sword protruding from her stomach for a moment before it was yanked out, provoking a scream from Ladybug. 

Chat had been frozen, but as Ladybug collapsed to the floor, he raced to support her head before it hit the ground. Looking up through teary eyes Chat acknowledged the akuma standing before him, brandishing a weapon now coated in Ladybug’s blood.   
“Hawkmoth is done with pleasantries, hand over the miraculous so I don’t have to kill you too.”   
Ladybug coughed blood bubbling out of her mouth as she choked to speak “You must go Chat, take my miraculous with you, we can’t risk Hawkmoth getting them.”   
Chat shook his head, eyes brimming with tears “I can’t leave you, I won’t. We will go to the guardian’s shrine, he can fix this.”   
Ladybug smiled grimly, blood coating her teeth “What have we to fear for?” She questioned, delicately putting a hand to his cheek “For not even death will keep me from finding you in my next life.”   
Chat felt something drop into his palm before Ladybug closed his fingers around it.   
“For our love is eternal.”   
Ladybug’s head dropped to the side, eyes glazed and staring out without seeing. Silent sobs wrecked Chat’s body as he clutched the lifeless body of his love in his arms. 

The akuma closed his eyes “Hawkmoth, I have defeated Ladybug. Now Chat Noir is all that stands between us and the miraculous.”   
Chat took a sharp breath. Ladybug had given her life to protect Egypt from Hawkmoth, and he would not let that be in vain. Shakily, he stood, setting Ladybug down gently on the floor before taking a fighting stance. Without Ladybug, he had no way to free the akuma from the victim. He had no choice. Calling for a cataclysm he raced to meet the charging akuma and all went dark. 

 

Gasping, Marinette shot up in bed, her heart racing. What the hell was that?

——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

Tikki raised her head sleepily from the pin cushion she had adapted to be her bed. 

“Everything alright Marinette? Did you have a bad dream?”  
Looking down, Marinette saw her hands clutching her abdomenon where the sword had gone in and removed them quickly. 

“Tikki, how many other miraculous holders have there been?” 

Any sense of remaining drowsiness Tikki had evaporated. Her eyes were wide as she fluttered up to Marinette’s face “Why do you ask Marinette? Did something happen?” 

Marinette frowned “I had a dream of a different Chat Noir and Ladybug but it was in Ancient Egypt. In the dream, Hawkmoth had sent an akuma to take their miraculous and Ladybug, she-“ Marinette’s gaze fell back down to her stomach where a phantom pain still resonated. 

She shook her head, “nevermind, it was just a silly dream. Just my subconscious trying to deal with what’s been happening.”   
Marinette blushed as she remembered what Ladybug and Chat Noir had been doing before the akuma came, how close they had been, the promises they had made to each other. Marinette flipped off her covers and slid ungracefully out of bed. Tikki opened her mouth to argue but Marinette beat her to the chase, quickly saying   
“I have to get ready for school” and locked the door behind her. 

——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

Tikki watched wearily all the way to school but remained silent. Now in third period math, Marinette’s mind had begun to wander in boredom and she found herself thinking again about the relationship Chat Noir and Ladybug had in her dream. What did it mean? Marinette was not oblivious to how close she and Chat had been getting lately, but there was no way she felt the same way as in the dream, could she? She felt a tap on her arm. Shaking her head she looked up to see Adrien smiling up at her from his seat below.

“Sorry to bother you Marinette, but I was wondering if you understood how to do any of this stuff and if you could show me, because I am absolutely lost.” 

Marinette blushed, guess her feelings for Adrien remained teh same despite her dream.

“Umm yeah, one sec.” Marinette hustled through her sack of notes to find a blank piece of paper before moving to explain how to find X. By the end of class, Adrien was already showing a better understanding of the material and grinned widely as he expressed his gratitude.

“Thank you so much Marinette, I swear is there anything you can’t do? I’ll see you in 5th period!” He said with a wink before leaving a blushing Marinette behind. 

By the time fifth period came around, Marinette’s exhaustion hit her like a ton of bricks and she could barely keep her eyes open. Thankfully their professeur was out for the day, leaving them with a study period where no one would care if she rested her eyes for a moment. 

——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

Ladybug sat by the edge of the pond, dragging her hand lightly across the top of the water. 

“Thought I would find you here” spoke out a voice from behind her. She smiled softly,

“One must take the few moments like this and use them as best we can, you never know the next time it will be this peaceful.” Ladybug kept her gaze on the pond as the figure sat down beside her. 

“Here I am wanting to spend all my time with you while you would prefer to stare at a pond full of fish.” 

Ladybug laughed as the man nuzzled into the crook of her neck “In my defense, they are beautiful fish-“ 

She jumps at the light nip on her ear “not as beautiful as you” the man whispered seductively, causing her heart to skip a beat and she finally twists to face the man.

“You walk on fire my dear Chat, we do not wish to temp the wrath of the gods.” 

Chat lifted her arm, kissing a trail down before whispering into into her palm “I’ve told you before, these gifts were bestowed to us from the gods. As long as we follow up on our duty to protect all of Athens from whatever threats it might face, I see no reason the gods would have any issue with our love.” 

Ladybug sighed, “you are consumed by love and lust, it blinds your judgement my dear Chat. Our lives are dedicated to the defeat of Hawkmoth, we cannot afford such distractions as our own selfish needs.” 

Chat used his grip on her hand to pull her closer “If my needs are lustful, then the gods are to blame.” 

Ladybug slammed her hand over his mouth “careful!” She whispered, her face grim while her counterpart’s eyes gleamed mischievously as he removed her hand to hold it in his. 

“Our love is blessed by Aphrodite my love, who are we to oppose her influence. As for our duties, other heroes of myth have loved, why should we be any different?” 

Ladybug smiled “you know how those tales ended don’t you?” 

Chat grinned “then we shall be the exception.”


	2. No Time Like the Present

“Marinette. Marinette! Girl you are out of it!”  
It took a moment for Marinette to match the voice to her best friend Alya.   
“What? Who? Sorry, I was just-“  
Marinette paused, taking note that her pencil was stuck to her face from power nap.   
“Girl you slept through the whole study period. Lucky there was no teacher to get you in trouble! What has you so tired?”  
Marinette shook her head to clear it “I just didn’t sleep very well last night, weird dream.”   
She couldn’t very well tell Alya that she’s having dreams about Chat Noir and her, especially since her in this instance means Ladybug.   
“Well you looked like you were sleeping peacefully this time, even caught you smiling a couple times.”   
Marinette blushed, remembering the content of the dream.   
“Oh-“ Alya started, eyebrows raised “was this an Adrien dream? He’s the only one who can make you blush like that.”   
Marinette’s eyes threatened to pop out of their sockets they were so wide “Alya, he’s two seats away! Do you have to speak so loud??”   
Alya’s eyes rolled “Whatever girl, I can see right through you.” 

Thankfully at that moment the bell rang announcing the end of class, because Marinette was far too freaked out to form any solid sort of conversation. So, she hastily packed up her bag and said a quick goodbye to Alya before heading out the door and straight home.

As soon as she was up into her loft Marinette let Tikki out of her purse, setting down a macaroon to incentivize the kwami to speak.   
“Do you know what is happening to me?”

Tikki swallowed the last bite of the sweet whole “Did you have another dream?” 

Marinette nodded “Both had Ladybug and Chat Noir in them, but they weren’t me and my Chat, they were different. Also they were both set a long time ago, one in Egypt and one in Greece. What does this mean Tikki?” 

Tikki grabbled at her antennae worriedly, massaging them in her tiny hands “This has never happened before.” 

Marinette threw up her hands in exasperation “but what, what is happening to me!” 

Tikki flew closer up to Marinette’s face “you seem to be dreaming about the lives of past miraculous holders.”

Marinette nodded, “okay but why, and how, and what?!”

Tikki shook her head “The Egypt dream you described was about one of the first holders of the Chat Noir and Ladybug miraculous, and if your dream about Ancient Greece was anything similar that it was about the lives of another set of holders. I’ve never had this happen to any other miraculous holders so I don’t know what could be causing it. I think the next thing we should do is speak with Chat Noir to see if the same thing is happening to him.” 

Marinette hadn’t thought about that. She checked the clock and saw they had just under an hour before she’s supposed to meet Chat for patrol. 

“Okay, until it’s time to leave, can you at least explain to me what happened in my dreams?”

Tikki shook her head “I don’t think I should, at least not until we know what this means since we don’t know the impact it might have.” 

Although Marinette was brimming with questions, she supposed it made sense. 

“Fine I guess I can use the time to get some homework done.” She said, despite knowing there was no way she would be able to focus. 

Marinette waited until Tikki disappeared downstairs to eat some more sweets before throwing herself onto the window seat. Although her dreams might not be of her own creation, that didn’t make the impact of having romantic dreams about Chat Noir any less confusing. Looking around her room, her walls were covered almost wall to wall in posters and pictures of Adrien. Her crush on the boy model had been so consuming, so why could she not stop thinking about Chat?

An hour later, Marinette hadn’t gotten anything productive done, but she had successfully rid herself of anything Adrien related. She felt like his eyes had been following her around the room, judging her. And why shouldn’t they? When she had been so completely in love with Adrien yesterday, and now she couldn’t stop thinking about the Chats in her dreams. Not to mention the present Chat Noir and his eyes, that he could not get out of her head. 

“Tikki! Ready for patrol?” 

———————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————  
After transforming, Marinette took off from her balcony, swinging through the city. The wind racing past her as she flew normally cleared her head, but today it was like her mind just wouldn’t shut up. Not to mention it felt like it weighed a hundred pounds. Maybe if she closed her eyes for just a moment…

The second her eyes closed, it was like the rest of her body shut down as well. 

Her body was in freefall, tumbling fast towards the streets of Paris. 

———————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

“We have to leave” 

Ladybug turned towards the source of the voice to find Chat racing into the courtyard. 

“Why, what’s wrong?” Worry seeped into her voice at the look on his face. 

Chat raced to where she stood, cradling her face in his hands “I know we promised not to reveal anything about our other lives, but just know that I can’t stay here in Athens for another day, and I want you to come with me.” 

Ladybug grasped Chat’s hands, “I don’t understand. We can’t leave Athens, you said we were gifted by the Gods to protect the city.” 

Chat pressed their foreheads together “I know, we can still come back to protect the city from any posters that are thrown at it, but if I stay here in my other form, I will never be able to see you again.” Chat cupped her face with his hands “and that is something I can’t bear. So please, come with me” he begged.   
Ladybug grabbed his hands and placed them between them over her heart “Chat I don’t-what could happen that would make leaving the only option.” 

Chat dropped their hands and took a step back, eyes fixed on his feet, unable to meet her gaze “I am engaged to be married. By tomorrow morning, I will be wed.” 

Ladybug was sure she could feel her heart stop. “You’re-you’re engaged, but we-“

Chat moved a step closer “I couldn’t exactly tell my family that I was in love with someone else, because then I would have to explain how I’m in love with the hero of Athens, which would lead to them finding to them finding out about me.” Another step closer “Please.” Ladybug backed away “Please Ladybug. I love you, always and forever. And I want us to be together that way, forever.” Ladybug closes her eyes and he takes the opportunity to pull her into him “I have to get some things ready before I can leave, explain to my parents that I left of my own choice.” Ladybug nods hesitantly and Chat grins “Promise you will meet me in an hour at the pond.” 

Ladybug let out a sigh “Gods Chat, I don’t know if I can, if we-“ 

Chat places a hand on her cheek “Do you love me? It’s as easy a question as that”

Ladybug’s eyes brimmed with tears, a small smile appearing “of course I do” 

Chat smirks, pulling her even closer, and with how warm her heart felt she swore they risked melting together as their lips collided. The kiss was passionate, and too quickly Chat was pulling away, placing a second quick kiss. 

“Then I will meet you in an hour” and with that he took off out of the courtyard. 

———————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

An hour later, Ladybug stood at the edge of pond, pacing back and forth along its side. 

A branch snapped behind her. 

“Chat, is that you? You’re late”

“Sorry to disappoint you Ladybug” a sultry voice responded “I’m afraid your dear Chat will not be joining us.” 

The voice was so close Ladybug could feel the warm breath on the back of her neck, and hear a faint sound of rattles and hisses that could only remind her of…

No way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry my chapters are so short! I'm kinda new to this


	3. Stone Cold

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ladybug is up against a mythological akuma

“Look at me Ladybug. Chat did when I ran into him at the entrance to the garden, and we got along so well he gave me a goodbye gift.” The figure said slyly as a hand appeared past Ladybug’s shoulder to show off Chat’s ring that now decorated her hand. 

Ladybug’s breath caught “No. Is he?” 

“He froze, quite literally when he saw me. Guess that’s what happens when you run into your fiancé after running away from your wedding.” 

Realization washed over Ladybug “So, that’s how you-“ 

“Yes Ladybug, an hour before my wedding my fiancé announced he was in love with someone else and he could not marry me. He made a fool out of me and disgraced my family. So when Hawkmoth gave me the chance to make him pay for what he did to me I jumped at the chance. All he asked in return was that I take the miraculouses from the heroes of Athens.” Ladybug could almost hear the grin in her voice “So, I followed him here and caught him just as he was about to transform. How lucky am I right? Two birds with one stone. Now all I need is the pretty jewelry decorating your ears.” 

Ladybug had an idea who she was dealing with, but she had no way of knowing for sure unless she found a way to look…

The pond. 

Ladybug could safely look at the alum’s reflection in the pond. 

“Now Ladybug, I am getting tired of this snake and mouse game, don’t you know it’s rude not to look at someone when they are talking to you?”

Ladybug looked down into the pond just in time to watch the akuma dig her clawed hand into Ladybug’s shoulder. The akuma’s face was a horrifying image, eyes golden and glowing, head surrounded in a crown of serpents. 

Ladybug would have to find a way to get out of the akuma’s grasp before she could do anything to free the woman inside. 

Without thinking, Ladybug snatched Chat’s ring off of the akuma’s hand and flung her device across the pond and around the branch hanging over it before leaping out and swinging across. Without looking back, Ladybug took off through the garden, taunts from the akuma following shortly behind. 

Ladybug thoughts were too consumed in trying to form some sort of plan that she didn’t notice the object in her path before crashing straight into it. 

Upon regaining her composure, she used her hold on the statue to steady herself, her gaze rising to find-Chat. 

He was out of his transformation without the ring, but she could see the same mischievous glint in his eye, even when turned to stone. She placed a hang on his cold cheek, tears threatening to brim over. 

“Come out Ladybug!” Rang the akuma’s voice out from behind her. “You’re just prolonging the inevitable. So why not make it easier on yourself and hand over those miraculouses.” 

Ladybug was out of time. 

She whispered the command that released her transformation and quickly spoke to the little kwami “it’s too late for us, take the earrings and chat’s ring to the guardian, he will know what to do.” 

Tikki nodded solemly, and reached for the objects Ladybug held out before flying up and away from the garden. 

“I found you my dear Lady- what. Where are the miraculouses?!” The akuma screeched. 

Now untransformed, Ladybug had no other choice but to accept her face. “I sent them away somewhere you and Hawkmoth will never find them.” She said proudly, her gaze still set on Chat. 

“TELL ME WHERE THEY ARE!” 

Ladybug placed her forehead against Chat’s, finding it now stone cold.   
She laced her fingers around Chat’s 

“Our eternity starts now” she whispered as she turned slightly, her eyes meeting the akuma’s. 

———————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

Marinette screamed. 

For the first moments after coming to, her body was paralyzed, taking longer to wake up than her mind had. Once she was able to sit up and look around, she seemed to be in some sort of alleyway. The last thing she could remember she had been on her way to patrol when she had’

“Tikki, spots off” 

Shooting pain shot through her as soon as she released her transformation and Tikki fluttered nervously above her. 

“You shouldn’t have released the transformation so soon Marinette, the suit was still repairing the damage made by the fall.” 

Marinette groaned “Tikki, I had another dream, well, I don’t even know if they are dreams anymore because I seem to get them randomly.” 

Tikki frowned “Maybe we should go see the guardian, if we don’t figure out what’s triggering them, the next time you get one you could get hurt even worse!” 

Marinettte knew the little spotted kwami was right, and moved to start walking in the direction of the Guardian’s home when shouts erupted in the distance followed by the sound of a large explosion. 

“Looks like we’re gonna have to take a detour first. Sounds like there’s another akuma.” 

Tikki nodded and quickly downed a sweet from Marinette’s purse 

“Tikki, spots on!” 

With her enhanced abilities while transformed, Marinette reached the scene in no time, and the akuma had already made quite the scene. Small fires lined the sides of the street, lighting the civilians running in the opposite direction of the action. Marinette whipped her yoyo around fast enough to start putting out some of teh bigger fires when a figure flew past her and crashed into the building behind her. Groaning, the figure pulled themself out of the rubble and shook off some of the dust on their pitch black suit before seeing Marinette. 

“Glad you could join the party bugaboo.”


	4. Heroes of Paris

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An akuma is attacking Paris and Marinette really needs to talk to Chat.

Marinette’s heart skipped a beat at the sight of Chat, the ones from his dreams still firmly in her mind. She forced a smile 

“Sorry I’m late Chatton, who are we up against this time?” 

“Some sort of fire akuma. Far as I can tell her whole body radiates heat, which is causing her to set anything she touches on fire. Calls herself Match, which is actually quite clever-“

“Maybe don’t applaud the akuma Chat, any idea what the object is?” 

Chat shook his head “Nothing for certain, but Match does clutch a charm around her neck quite often, I’m guessing that may be it.” 

Marinette nodded “then let’s-“ 

Chat’s ring beeped as a part of the paw print blinked away, leaving only one part left. 

“Sorry Princess, I was going to tell you that I already used up all my juice before you got here. I’ll try to come back as soon as I can.” 

Marinette blushed “Please do, I really need to talk to you once the akuma is de-evilized.” 

Chat raised his eyebrows at her expression but quickly recovered and gave her a wink “Can’t wait.” 

After watching Chat run off, Marinette turned her attention to the akuma who was stalking towards her, leaving sizzling footsteps in her wake. 

“Here we go again” she said with a sigh, launching herself at the akuma. 

—————————————————————————————

It hadn’t taken Marinette too long to get the necklace away from the akuma and use her lucky charm to reverse any serious damage. 

She released her transformation for a bit so Tiki could have a break and eat some sweets before changing back. She left a message for Chat Noir to meet her on the Eiffel Tower and took off swinging through the streets. 

Ladybug hadn’t had another dream since the one that had her waking up in the alleyway. She moved to a spot where if she collapsed again she wouldn’t fall out of the tower just in case. Since she had some time to kill while waiting for Chat, she decided to take some time to think about her dreams, as if they hadn’t been playing on a loop in her head all day. It worried her that the two past miraculous holders she had seen weren’t able to defeat Hawkmoth. But if she was being honest, what consumed her attention the most was how both the Ladybugs and Chat Noirs in Ancient Egypt and Greece had been in love. Soulmates. That’s what they had said. 

“Well hey there princess” purred a voice from behind her, making the hair on the back of her neck stand on end. 

“Hi-“ she croaked out, hoping Chat couldn’t see the blush flushing her cheeks underneath the mask.

He seemed to notice something was wrong since he swung down from his perch on a beam to sit down beside her. 

“What did you need to talk about? Did everything go alright with the akuma?”

Marinette nodded quickly “Nothing out of the ordinary.” 

Crazy how akumas had become the norm for Paris. 

Chat raised his eyebrows “Then what troubles you m’lady?” He put a hand on her shoulder “you know you can tell my anything.” 

Marinette’s whole body felt as if it was on fire, heat spreading throughout her body from where his hand rested. 

“I, um- well, you see…” 

She pushed herself back a bit, putting some distance between them so she could think clearly. 

“I was wondering if you have been having…dreams.”

Chat looked taken aback “Dreams.”

“Yeah, about past miraculous holders?” 

Chat shook his head “I haven’t. Why, have you?” 

Marinette gave Chat an abridged version of her dream, making sure to skip over any graphic details about the violent parts, and neglected to mention the romantic aspects. 

Chat was uncommonly quiet throughout her explanation, listening intently, but occasionally getting a distant look in his eyes. 

“So what does your kwami say about this? Is it normal?”

Marinette looked down at her spot covered feet “Tikki doesn’t remember this ever happening before. She thought we should go see the Guardian, but we decided I should tell you first in case the same thing was happening to you…As that might be a clue.” She finally built up enough courage to meet Chat’s gaze and the look on her face had her immediately looking away “I should probably go see him now that we know it’s not” she finished, standing up but being stopped from leaving by Chat’s hand grabbing her wrist. 

“Wait, you said that these dreams can happen at any point and render you unconscious right? I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to go swinging off across Paris without a spotter.” 

He stood up and took a step forward so there was less than a foot between them, causing Marinette’s heart to falter for a beat. 

“Would it be okay if tagged along?” 

Marinette’s face flushed again, but she nodded and the two leapt down from the tower and took off towards Master Fu’s. 

The pair were fairly quiet. But Marinette could feel Chat’s gaze keep flitting over to her, which in turn made her heart beat faster every time. 

When they arrived at the Guardian’s front door, Marinette paused, grabbing Chat’s arm and giving it a quick squeeze and murmured a quick thank you as the door slid open. 

“Ah, heroes of Paris. How can I half you this fine evening.”


	5. The Red Knight

Marinette gave Master Fu a quick explanation, again neglecting any romantic aspects since Chat Noir was next to her. When she finished, Master Fu’s hands were raised and rubbing his temples.

“This has never happened before to my knowledge, but I will have to address the collected knowledge of the guardians to make sure. And you said you weren’t experiencing the same thing Chat Noir?” 

Her feline companion shook her head, expressing a worried expression “But what could this mean? And is it going to get worse? These dreams are rendering Ladybug unconscious, what if the next time she falls she gets more hurt than the suit can heal her from. Or worse! What if the next time she’s not even transformed!” 

Marinette put a hand on his arm “I’ll be okay Chat” 

He put a hand over hers “I know m’lady, I’m just worried about you. I don’t want you to get hurt” he finished, his voice faltering from his normally strong demeanor. 

Master Fu cleared his throat and the two heroes blushed, taking a few steps away from each other “well, I can see that you two have already been effected by the dreams, getting closer I see? Just like the way many holders have before you.” 

Marinette’s eyes widened and she suddenly took a strong interest in the floor. 

“What are you talking about?” The black suited hero questioned.

“Oh you know, the tendancy of Chat Noir and Ladybug miraculous holders to-“

“Well thank you so much Master Fu but I think we better let you get to finding out what all this means. Plus it’s getting late.” Marinette rushed, grabbing Chat’s hand, pulling him towards the door, giving a quick wave before closing it behind them.

Marinette continued to lead Chat away from Master Fu’s until they were a few blocks away before realizing she was still holding his hand. 

“Ladybug stop.” Chat finally said, pulling against her hand to slow them down “What did Master Fu mean back there? Is there something you are not telling me? Ladybug, we are partners, I thought you trusted me more than-“ 

Without thinking, Marinette covered Chat’s mouth with her hand to shut him up.

“I do trust you Chatton! You have to understand, these dreams, they are so vivid, and apparently actually happened. They are just so confusing and I- I didn’t want to tell you about them until I had a better understanding of what they meant myself. 

Chat squeezed her hand gently “I can handle it. I promise.” 

Marinette nodded, took a deep breath, and started to ramble off before she could stop herself. 

“Well, I told you the dreams were about past Ladybug and Chat Noir miraculous holders, and fighting against Hawkmoth and his akumas. But I kinda left parts out, parts where I-I mean Ladybug…She dies.”

Chat moves to speak but she holds up her hand “Also…I, um- well you see…” she shut her eyes so she couldn’t see his reaction “I also kind of let out the romance part.”

“WHAT?!” 

—————————————————————————————

Marinette was exhausted. Not only had she stayed up late explaining the most intimate details of her dreams to Chat, but she also couldn’t seem to fall asleep. She was too worried about having another dream. 

With how tired she was, she basically sleep-walked to school, and with her eyes half shut she didn’t notice the figure in front of her until she ran right into them. 

“Watch out where you’re going! You almost broke my nail!”

Of course it had to be Chloe. 

“Sorry Chloe! I didn’t see you.”

“Well obviously. What-What’s wrong with you? You look like you’re going to pass out or something.” 

“I’m fine.” Marinette replied, despite her vision going blurry “actually, I think I need to-“

Her vision blacked out as she collapsed onto the ground of the school courtyard. 

—————————————————————————————

The princess stood hidden behind the door, listening into the battle strategy meeting happening within. 

“Sire, the enemy’s numbers grow each day. We are fighting on the defensive and we are loosing. I again suggest that we attempt to contact the-“

“No!” The king bellowed “I refuse to win the battle due to aid from that witch’s black magic! We will just have to…”

The princess sighed, her father was too set in her old-fashioned ways. A hand grabbed her arm and pulled her out from behind the door before backing her into the hallway, placing a hand over her mouth to keep her from screaming. 

“Don’t worry princess, it’s only me” 

She hit the man’s shoulder “Sir knight, you startled me. Don’t you know it is not wise to sneak up on a lady?”

The man chuckled and stepped closer to the princess, his hand resting on the wall behind her as he leaned in 

“Do you wish for me to leave?” 

She placed a hand on his cheek, guiding his face closer to hers “I didn’t say that…” she whispered against his lips as they collided. 

The princess wished she could stay in his arms forever, but bellows from the king’s chambers sent them scrambling apart. 

“Your father grows restless with the ongoing war.” 

“We are loosing, and he still won’t call for help from the Red Knight, simply because she’s a woman.” 

The knight grabbed her hand “things will change when you are queen” he promised, using his pointer finger to tilt her chin up so her eyes met his.

“What if I don’t want to be queen. I don’t want my only duty to be getting married and produce heirs. I don’t want others to fight my battles for me, I just- I want to do something you know?” 

Her knight placed a light kiss to her hand “I know you want to help, but war is messy and horrible. I don’t feel bad for wanting you far away from all of this. Plus, as princess you represent the wellbeing of the entire kingdom. Just by staying here in the castle, where you will be safe, you are showing the soldiers what they are fighting for.” 

Her father’s chambers burst open and her knight was called over by the king’s right hand. She watched as he listened her intently for a moment before nodding in acknowledgment to his orders and walked back over to the princess. 

“I have been called to join the front lines, there have been sightings of King Hawkmoth mobilizing his army for another attack to attempt to get inside the castle walls.” 

He took a step closer but made sure to maintain an appropriate distance between a knight and the princess that was appropriate. 

“Please go back to your chambers, we have doubled the guards protecting your room. Don’t open the door for anyone but the head of the guard of your father. Not even me. You know how horrible Hawkmoth’s dark powers can be.” 

The doors were locked behind her as soon as the princess was inside. She would have to find another way out. 

Calling for her kwami, the princess gave the command for her transformation. Once the mist cleared, her gown had disappeared and she was now clothed in the armor of the red knight. 

With her now heightened abilities, the fall from her window didn’t give her any pause. Within a minute she was scaling over the castle walls and descending into the thicket of the battle. 

Despite wearing a helmet, her blood red armor revealed her as the mysterious woman knight. And since her father, the king, had spent a lot of energy dismissing her abilities as witchcraft, she had no trouble clearing a path to the front line. 

“Ah my dear red knight, I was wondering when you would come.”

The red knight spun around, following the voice to find King Hawkmoth surrounded by fallen soldiers, blood dripping from her sword.


	6. Cataclysm

“Hawkmoth.” The Red Knight said through clenched teeth “Stop the attack. What do you gain from all this death?”

One of Hawkmoth’s soldiers came at her, but she quickly deflected the enemy’s sword, throwing them down into the mud. 

“You can never had enough power my dear.” Hawkmoth drawled with a grin.   
“I’ll admit. My reasoning for the attack on this kingdom was at first just about expanding my boarders. Upon discovering you however, one cannot argue that I have discovered a jewel, and I want you to join me, someone who will appreciate your power.” 

And the Red Knight thought Hawkmoth had run out of ways to make her sick. She raised her sword above her shoulders, angling it so the point aimed at Hawkmoth. 

“You lost any chance of me joining you the moment you killed your first innocent. I could never side with someone like you.” 

He shrugged, offhandedly slicing down the chest of a changing soldier, without taking his eyes off of her 

“Your loss Red Knight. If you won’t join me, that makes you a problem, and I will just have to take your power for myself. 

He made a motion and a wave of soldiers descended upon her. 

 

————————————————————————————————————

The Red Knight fought the enemy off successfully enough that the other soldiers were mainly standing around, watching in astonishment at the woman who fought off any enemy that didn’t run away scared. 

While most of the me whispered about a woman knight being unnatural, the princess’s knight watched in awe as she fought off six attackers at once, and the rest of the enemy forces fled into the woods behind them. 

Cheers erupted around her 

“The battle is won!” 

“Run away you cowards!” 

“Victory!” 

“Silence!” commanded the king as he stormed through the path made by the soldiers. “The battle is not yet won, I refuse to owe our victory to the actions of a witch!” 

The king unsheathed his sword and pointed it at the woman knight. 

“I will not fight you your majesty” she said wearily, eyes locked on the king’s “you are not my enemy” 

The king huffed in his armor, breath visible in the cold that had set in while the battle had slowed. 

“Then watch as I slay you!” 

He charged. 

“Father, wait-“

The sword impaled her chest, driving through her armor that had weakened gradually through the hardship of the battle. 

Blood blocked the Red Knight’s airways as her transformation faded away, revealing her as the princess and staining her delicate dress with blood. 

“No!” Her knight screamed, racing to soften her fall as she collapsed into the mug, hands clutched around the hilt of the sword. 

The king shook his head “What trickery is this?” Hands dripping with his daughter’s blood. 

The princess coughed up more blood, staining the knight’s helmet before he pushed up the visor 

“I’m sorry my love” she whispered weakly “I only wanted an adventure, a change to do something for my people” 

The knight shushed her, his hands pressing on her wound in an attempt to stop the bleeding 

“Shhh my love, don’t speak. We will get you to the castle to see the healers and you will be fine.” 

The princess shook her head, eyes growing distant, but focused on his as she lifted a bloody hand to his cheek

“I love you-“ she said in barely a whisper. 

Her hand dropped, blood pooling from her mouth as the last bit of life flickered from her eyes. 

The knight let out a sob that turned into more of a scream as he clutched the princess’s lifeless body. 

The king fell to his knees

“Dear god, what have I done? My child.” 

“It seems that you’ve done my work for me your majesty, so I must thank you.” 

The king spun around to see Hawkmoth, watching the scene unfold before him.

“Thank you for dirtying your hands so I don’t have to. Now, I want what I came for, give her body to me, or watch your kingdom fall.” 

The knight clutched the princess tighter as he watched soldiers pour out from the woods and realized he had no choice. 

Setting the princess softly onto the ground, he whispered a command and his suit of armor shifted from silver to black. 

“CATACLYSM!” He shouts as a wave of Hawkmoth’s soldiers rushed at them. 

Black energy shoots out from his and spreads, entangling Hawkmoth and his army, collapsing them all to dust. 

 

————————————————————————————————————

“I told you she’s fine! Marinette’s just being a little drama queen.”

Marinette opened her eyes and gasped.

“See! I told you, she’s fine.”

Marinette groaned when she matched a face to the voice, remembering it was Chloe that she had passed out in front of. 

“No one’s keeping you here Chloe, go away.”

Marinette chuckled, and that’s why Alya is her best friend.

She tried to get her bearings “What…Where…” 

Her eyes finally adjusted to the sun glaring down at her and she realized that she was lying on the ground, a group of her peers staring down at her worriedly.

She shot up.

“How long was I out?” 

“15 minutes!” Alya responded “Another minute and we were gonna call for an ambulance!” 

Marinette stood quickly and slung her backpack over her shoulder

“I’m fine, sorry if I worried you guys, I must just be really tired.” 

Most of the crowd that had surrounded Marinette seemed to accept her story and dispersed, leaving only Alya and Nino. 

“You’ve been really tired recently hun, is everything okay?” 

Marinette attempted to give a weak smile “yeah, I’m just really tired-“ 

Another wave of drowsiness hit her. 

“I think I better go home and rest” she finished quickly before running out the school’s front gate. 

Another wave hit her and she stumbles into a figure turning into the school. 

“I’m sorry, I didn’t see you-“

“Marinette? Are you okay?” 

Marinette was already out of it enough that she couldn’t identity who the blur was in front of her 

“I’m fine, I have to go” she slurred, pulling herself out of the figure’s grasp and quickly pacing away from the school. 

She only made it a block or two before she tumbled off of the sidewalk and into the street. Blaring car horns barely reaching her ears as she was lost to the world.


	7. Two Sides, Same Coin.

Adrien hadn’t slept much last night, mainly due to worry but also excitement. Of course he worried that Ladybug could loose consciousness at any moment due to these dreams, which was terrifying. 

But he couldn’t help himself from being excited about what he had told him was happening between past holders in her dreams. All the past Chat Noirs and Ladybugs had been in love! And with some they even referred to each other as soulmates! Adrian had to admit he started to question whether anything would happen between them. But now? With Ladybug having these dreams? It was powering him to keep fighting. 

“Get up lover boy, it’s time for school!” 

As Adrien walked to school he couldn’t stop thinking about all the trouble Ladybug could fall into throughout the day. What if she collapsed somewhere dangerous?

Adrien’s phone had been blowing up all morning, checking his phone he saw he had at least ten messages from Nino. Still engrossed in looking at his phone, Adrien didn’t notice the figure coming at him until they collided. 

“I’m sorry, I didn’t see you-“ 

Adrien righted himself and studied the person he had crashed into and realized who it was. 

“Marinette, are you okay?” 

The girl looked like she was about to fall over, her eyes distant and eye lids drooping. 

“I’m fine. I have to go” she slurred, and took off around the corner. 

Adrien shook his head and moved to walk into the school when Alya ran up to the gate. 

“Did you see Marinette? She passed out and was unconscious for around fifteen minutes, and then thought it was a good idea to walk home alone.” 

Nino appeared beside her, looping his arm over her shoulder.

“It was crazy man, she was acting weird, said something to Chloe about being tired then collapsed. Then she jumped up like nothing happened!

“WHAT”

Nino looked at him confused “calm down man, Alya will go after her.” 

Adrien looked out the way Marinette had gone and saw her stumble. 

“No it’s okay. I’ll go make sure she get’s home alright, I was thinking about skipping today anyways. You two go to class.” 

Ignoring the looks from his friends he raced after Marinette, and watched as she collapsed into the street. 

Adrien doesn’t think he has ever run faster in his life, his feet barely touching the ground as he flung himself between the oncoming traffic and unconscious Marinette. 

Once he made sure the Cars could see him, he turned back to Marinette and lifted her into his arms, carrying her out of the road.

But now he had no idea what to do now, he couldn’t exactly stay out in public. He noticed the weird looks he was getting from passerbys. Why? What was so weird about him- ah. 

It didn’t look great, what with him holding an unconscious girl in his arms. 

He had to get Marinette away from the public eye. He couldn’t go back to his house, his father seemed to be getting more and more paranoid by the day. Recently, Adrien had found newly placed security cameras covering almost every inch of the house. Which made keeping his identity as Chat Noir secret even more difficult. There was no way him coming home from school, not to mention with an unconscious girl in his arms would go unnoticed. 

No, not his house. Not Marinette’s either since her front door was also the entrance to her family’s bakery. Wait, he knew Marinette’s room upstairs had it’s own balcony since he had visited her as Chat Noir before. 

First he could have to find somewhere to transform into Chat Noir so he would be able to climb up to Marinette’s balcony while still holding his unconscious friend.

He quickly ducked into a nearby alleyway. 

“Plagg!” 

He set Marinette down gently before ripping open his backpack, letting the cat kwami out. 

“Finally! I’ve been shouting at you from in there for the past few minutes! Aren’t you forgetting something?” 

Adrien frowned “what do you mean?” 

The kwami rolled his eyes “Some genius you are kid, if Marinette is Ladybug, where is her kwami?”

Adrien hit his hand to his forehead, he hadn’t thought to grab Marinette’s bag from the road when he picked her up. 

If Marinette left her kwami in her bag like he did…

“Plagg, watch Marinette, I will be back as soon as possible.” 

—————————————————————

Racing back to the street where Marinette had fallen, he didn’t see her bag anywhere. 

Oh no, had the bag been run over? Dragged off by a car? Stolen?

Adrien spun around frantically, looking for any sign of the bag. 

There! 

A little ways down the sidewalk was Marinette’s bag, subtly scooting an inch or two at a time further down the street. 

Adrien ran over and grabbed the bag’s strap, quietly whispering an apology to the kwami inside before lifting it up and over his shoulder, walking quickly back to the alleyway where he left Plagg and Marinette. 

When he got back, Plagg was knocking on Marinette’s forehead 

“Hellooooo, anyone home?” 

“Plagg! Stop it!” 

Adrien dropped down beside Marinette’s still unconscious form, searching for any sort of sign that she was starting to wake up, but her status seemed unchanged.

Plagg zoomed past, unbuckling Marinette’s bad and opened his arms wide to receive the red blur that crashed into him. 

“Tikki!”

“Plagg!”

Still embracing, the swami’s spun up into the air laughing. 

“Its been too long!”

“Too long!”

Tikki stopped spinning, and pushed Plagg away “Wait, if you’re here, that means-“

She looked over and her jaw dropped 

“Marinette’s gonna loose it.” 

“You’re telling me” Plagg smirked “Wait until I tell you how sickly in love Adrien is with-“

Adrien cleared his throat “uh guys, maybe we can focus on the current situation. What are we gonna do about Marinette? How long until she wakes up?” 

Tikki fluttered over, touching down on Marinette’s stomach. 

“There’s no way of knowing, they seem to vary. Some have been hours while others only minutes.” 

Plagg shudders “To experience all the deaths of past miraculous holders must be terrible.” 

Adrien hadn’t considered the trauma the dreams might be inflicting on Marinette. He had been too focused on the romantic aspects of the dreams she told him about. Thinking back to when Ladybug had been talking about her dreams, she had flinched when he placed a hand on her back, quickly saying something about having been stabbed there in one of her dreams. How many other was had she died in these dreams? And if she’s going to keep on having the dreams about past holders until reaching the present, that is thousands of years. 

Marinette’s kwami snapped him out of it, putting a paw on his hand. 

“She’ll be alright Adrien, I can watch over her until she wakes up if you want to get to class.”

Adrien grabbed Marinette’s hand, holding it in his 

“I couldn’t possibly focus on school right now. No, I’ll stay with her until she wakes up. Should we try to move her?”

Tikki shook her head “It’s probably best to keep her in the same place until she wakes up.”

Plagg nods in agreement “we don’t want to disorient her any more than she already will be.”

It made sense, but Adrien didn’t like the idea of her having to wake up in an alleyway. 

Looking at her, her expression didn’t give any sort of indication to what was going on in her head. It was simply as if someone had hit her off switch, and awaited the reboot. 

Plagg and Tikki were huddled together, whispering quietly, worry uncommonly plastered across Plagg’s face. 

“What?” 

The two looked down at their floating feet.

“Please, if it had to do with Marinette, don’t keep me out of the loop. What’s wrong?”

The swamis share a look before Plagg responds

“Listen kid, we don’t know why yet, but Marinette is having these flashbacks of past holders that render her unconscious.-“

“And they seem to be shaped somewhat chronologically” Tikki interrupts “so we believe these dreams will continue until she reaches the present. And with the increasing number of akuma attacks…”

“We think the guardian should choose another miraculous holder.”


	8. Lover Boy

Adrien was sure he had heard wrong. 

“What?! You two want to replace Marinette?!”

Plagg rolled his eyes “Slow down lover boy, we didn’t mean that we should find someone else to wield the Ladybug miraculous.”

Tikki placed a paw on Marinette’s cheek “I would never want to replace Marinette, she’s one of the best holders I’ve ever had.” 

“We just think” Plagg interrupted “that it might help if the guardian chose another holder to wield a third miraculous.” 

Tikki held up a paw “What if you two are fighting an akuma and Marinette collapses? We can’t risk an akuma grabbing her miraculous or letting them get away. It will be easier if you two have another hero to help.”

“Plus, what if Marinette didn’t wake up for days, we have no idea how long she might stay in this state”

Tikki hissed at him and hit her cat counterpart

“Not helping!” 

Marinette’s eyes shot open, took one glace at Adrien and attacked. 

One arm constricted around his neck while the other twisted his arm, immobilizing him instantly. 

“Níðingr!” She spat, eyes filled with fury 

“Marinette!” Tikki yelped 

“Þú greiõir fyrir pette!” She growled, throwing the oxygen deprived boy down onto the ground. 

Taking a gasping breath, Adrien looked up to see Marinette standing over him, seething. 

“Guys” he wheezed “what’s going on?!” 

Marinette moved to cut off Adrien’s windpipe with her foot when Plagg flew in front other, holding his arms up in surrender 

“Þú ert Marinette. Þú ert öruggur. Þúert meõ vinum.”

Marinette shook her head, hands still in fists but her glare softened. 

Adrien mimicked Plagg’s movement, raising his hands slowly while keeping his eyes on Marinette. 

“Plagg, what language is that?” 

“It’s Old Norse.” 

“The language of the vikings” Tikki concluded, as if everything made perfect sense now. 

Marinette seemed to be snapping out of it, crumpling to the ground in a sob, her head dropping into her hands. 

“Where’s Chat?” She croaked. 

Adrien dropped his arms, looking over at the two kwamis for help.

Plagg just shrugged.

Thanks for nothing, you useless cat.

“Where’s Chat?” Marinette repeated “where is my Chat?”

Her Chat?

Adrien shoved down any lovesick notions at Marinette’s words, refusing to focus on his own selfish wants 

“Marinette, it’s me, Adrien. I’m, well, I am Ch-“

“No no” Marinette whimpered “I can’t. It hurts. I need my Chat.” 

Sobs wrecked her body and the little red kwami sped over, cuddingling comfortingly into the crook of the girl’s neck. 

Pagg tugged on Adrien’s shirt.

“Maybe you should go get Chat…Adrien.”

What? But I’m- oh. 

“Yeah, it will be okay Marinette. I’ll go get Chat Noir.”

Running out of the alleyway and into another a block away to transform out of prying eyes. 

“Plagg, what happened to her?” 

The black kwami tugged his ears nervously.

“There’s no way to no for sure, but Marinette seems to be taking longer to shake awake from her dream this time.” 

“So that’s why she was speaking that weird language?”

Plagg nodded “Old Norse. While miraculous holders don’t remember past ones with this one exception, it isn’t the same for kwamis. 

Recognition hit Adrien “So that’s how you were able to speak it, because you-“

“Because I remember the past Chat Noir miraculous holder who was alive during the age of vikings.”

Adrien grimaced “And now so does Marinette.” He looked over at his kwami. “Does it hurt? Having to outlive all the miraculous holders?”

Plagg shook his head “we should really get back to-“

“How many have there been? How many will there be after me?”

“Kid look-“

“How can you even distinguish us apart after living thousands of years? Will you even care about me three holders from now? Twenty?”

“Adrien. I do not want to talk about this with you, I won’t. This is the one thing I ask of you.” 

Adrien opened his mouth but Plagg held up his paw 

“I will say this once, and then we will never speak of it again. Every holder is different, and they are all special to me. I remember them all.”

Adrien swore he saw a tear fall from the kwami

“Plagg, I-“

“It’s okay kid, most holders ask about it at one point or another. But I meant it about us never discussing this again. Now, let’s go help your girl lover boy.”

Adrien blushed, quickly called out the command and watched as Plagg flew into the ring.


	9. Valhalla

She was surrounded with bodies, enemies and friends alike, her sword crusted with layers of blood. 

Her miraculous had been taken earlier in the battle and she had only just gotten back when…

She had watched, helplessly, unable to stop her family from being slain in front of her by the leader of the enemy forces, Hawkmoth.

And now it was too late, the battle may have been won, but winning had sacrificed more than half of the lives from her village.

She collapsed into the mud on her knees, her head resting on the now unmoving chest of her father, who had until his death been the chief of their clan.

With the bodies of her brothers, being a couple feet away, leadership of their people now fell to her.

A warrior approached her cautiously, 

“I’m sorry to disturb you my lady, but if we wish to find shelter before dark we should leave now.”

She nodded, wiping the tears from her eyes. 

A viking never showed weakness, even in the darkest of times.

————————————————————————

It’s been weeks since the bloody battle. Weeks since she took he father’s role as chief.

Her clan was still working on cleaning up the after math.

Having lost so many soldiers, their village had resorted to training farmers and fisherman for battle. They had to be prepared in case Hawkmoth tried to attack again.

Now, she sad in her chair listening to the strategy meeting in progress.

“We should leave before Hawkmoth comes back. We won this time, but for now, how long can we hold his forces off” voiced an elder 

“We are vikings, vikings do not run” argued a warrior.

The room fell into silence.

A table of people turned their attention to the chief, awaiting her decision.

“We stay.” 

The room erupted into chaos, half the room cheering while others complained that we were signing off on our deaths.

“I do not fear Hawkmoth, and the powers bestowed to me by Odin will let me protect all of us from harm.”

“And what if we think you need help?” Came a voice from near the door.

The chief rolled her eyes.

“I don’t remember inviting you to this meeting” she drawled coldly.

The figure laughed, moving into the light of the torches, revealing his all black ensemble

“And yet here I am, may I have a moment Chief?”

Sighing, the chief waved her hand, dismissing the meeting and signaling for the man to follow her as she moved to stand in front of the fireplace. 

“Why are you here?”

The man smirked “I’m here to marry you.”

It was her turn to laugh 

“How many times do I have to say no to you until it gets through your thick viking skull. I don’t want to marry you. Understand?”

The man took a step forward

“I said I will not marry you”

Another step “You sure?”

A final step and he was close enough to wrap his arms around her waist, sending shivers down her spine, heart jumping at his closeness. 

She took a deep breath, arguing with her head about all the reasons why she should knock him out and run off.

By the gods…why not.

Using a hand placed on the back of his neck, she pulled him into her so him mouth surged forward to meet hers. 

They stayed that way, lost in a bruising kiss until both were in desperate need of air.

The man chuckled as they broke apart, both breathing heavily but staying close enough that their foreheads touched. 

“You say you don’t want to marry me, but your body says quite the opposite” he whispered hands trailing up and down her body.

She put a finger up to his lips “Can’t a woman kiss someone without risk of being proposed to?”

The man pulled her back into him, her body curving into his as he took control of their embrace. 

Well this wouldn’t do.

The chief pulled away, leaving the boy to chase after his lips. 

She clicked her tongue, shaking her head subtly before she shoved his chest, sending him backing up against the stone wall. 

“Don’t forget who has the power in this situation” she whispered into his ear before biting it lightly and attacking his neck with kisses. 

She swore he heard him purr before dragging her back up so their lips crashed together again in a heated kiss, made only hotter by the raging fire beside them. 

“Marry me” he murmured against her lips, barely even breaking the kiss. 

“The chief sighed, pulling away from the kiss and out of his embrace.

“You know why I can’t. Please don’t make this any harder than it already is-“

“That’s the problem, I don’t know why. And I promise I’m not trying to make things harder for you, I just need to understand. We have been promised to each other since before we could walk. We’ve spent almost every waking hour since then together, learning, fighting, playing…”

He took a step closer to her and the chief took a defensive stance, startling him.

“Our families have planned our wedding and future together more times than I can count, and we have dedicated ourselves to each other secretly time and time again, promising to love one another until our dying breaths. What I can’t seem to figure out is what’s changed so we no longer want the same thing.”

“My parents died. My whole family died, that’s what has changed!” she cried out, voice cracking.

A tear escaped out of her eye before she could wipe it away. 

“My family died, and I suddenly found myself with the fate of the entire clan on my shoulders.” 

Noticing that he no longer attempted to move closer she dropped her hands, surrendering to the pain she has felt the past few weeks.

“Before the battle, I had three brothers who were set to lead before I would have to. They were some of the best warriors our clan had and Hawkmoth slaughtered them where they stood like they were nothing.”

The man bowed his head in respect for all those who fell during the battle. 

“Hawkmoth made my father watch him slay my brothers and slice the throat of my mother before killing him too. He didn’t just want to kill his rival, but destroy my father’s will to love. The only reason I am alive is because of the powers the gods have given me, and sometimes I wish I hadn’t had them so I could be with my family.”

The man’s chest heaved and he surged forward to hold her but she help up a hand, stopping him.

“I am now chief of this clan, and I must face the threat of Hawkmoth daily. If he had the chance, Hawkmoth would not hesitate to kill anyone whose death he thought would hurt me.”

She took a deep but ragged breath

“I will not publicly declare my dedication to you. For it is the equivalent of painting a target on your back.” 

Tears now freely trailed down her face, staining her cheeks

“That is why I will not marry you. And as your chief I demand that you never question my decision again. Now go.”

Her winded speech had broken past any sort of walls the man had, tears filling and spilling over the bottom of his eyes. 

Practically running, he closed the distance between them, pulling the chief into an embrace.

She struggled against him for a moment, but she was exhausted and desperately in need of his closeness. 

Letting out a sob she clung to his chest and he only pulled her closer. 

The man seemed to collapse into her, head resting on her shoulder, pressing kisses all over the side of her neck and shoulder. 

Several minutes past this way before he pulled back slightly, just enough so they could see each other as he held both sides of her face in his hands 

“I am incapable of leaving you. Ever. But I will not question your decision to marry me ever again.”

Using his thumb, he brushed away newly fallen tears and the chief’s eyes widened at his words 

“I am here however you need me to be, a lover, a confidant, a friend, a warrior… I will fight for you always my love.”

He kissed her cheek, her forehead, and her other cheek before placing a quick kiss to her nose, finishing with below her ear and whispering 

“For we are written in the stars.”

————————————————————————

As Marinette started to come out of the dream, the first thing she noticed was the absent heat from the fireplace and the warmth of the man’s embrace. The second was that there was a blond figure standing over her. 

She attacked.


	10. A New Hero

Marinette’s life slowly came back to her, replacing those of the viking chief past holder. It wasn’t a pleasant process, what with her reality being ripped out from under her.

“No no I want my Chat”

Chat.

The one thing that made sense to her, that was present in both lives. She was still too out of it to even distinguish who stood in front of her before they were gone, leaving her alone. 

“Marinette, are you okay?” Questioned a red blur “it’s me, Tikki.”

Marinette nodded. Tikki was a name she recognized. 

“What happened?”

“You had another one of your dreams and it seems to be taking longer for you to come out of it.”

Marinette pulled her knees into her chest. She was cold, and scared. 

“Don’t worry Marinette, Chat will be back any moment.”

Oh good, Chat will-Chat will what?!

“But I’m in my civilian form, does he know that I’m Ladybug?!”

Tikki fluttered nervously in front of her “he saw you collapse into the road when you had another dream and he figured it out.”

Marinette wanted to disappear 

“Ah, how did he react? Was he disappointed?

“Not at all m’lady”

Marinette’s head shot up but she didn’t turn around, seriously considering ignoring the voice of her partner and high-tailing it out of there. 

“I’m glad to see you’re feeling better.”

Marinette blushed, glad that he couldn’t see her face

“Tikki was just telling me that you saved me. Thank you.”

“It’s nothing” Chat responded, voice wavering a bit from it’s normally strong tone “You would have done the same thing in my situation.”

Marinette nodded subtly and reached up to rub her temples, which sent Chat racing to her side.

“Are you alright? Are you starting to have another dream?”

Marinette couldn’t do anything but stare at him, his expression filled with worry but not looking at her any different then he had when she was Ladybug.

She shook her head, absentmindedly dropping a hand onto his knee and squeezing it comfortingly

“I’m okay, just struggling to distinguish what’s my memories, and which were hers. I mean the Ladybug from my dream. It feels like I have two minds on the same matter and they aren’t agreeing on things.”

Chat’s gaze had dropped to her hand which still rested on his knee. Looking up to meet her gaze she felt like his eyes were burning into her

“What sort of things?”

Marinette remembered the heat of the fire, and how it couldn’t compare to the scalding touch of the Chat Noir miraculous holder in her dream. But it hadn’t just been this dream had it? The miraculous holders had been in love in all of her dreams. 

Marinette knew that her own feelings for Chat had been there long before the dreams started, they just had made her realize how deep those feelings went. 

She removed her hand from his leg, a battle raging between her head and her heart as she struggled to resist the urge to-

She lunged forward, cupping the sides of his face as she crashed her lips to his. 

Chat was still for a moment and Marinette feared she had misunderstood the situation, that he didn’t feel the same way…

She was about to pull away and apologize when his body loosened and mouth started to move against hers, quickly picking up pace. 

His hands moved onto her waist, pulling her closer to him and making her rise up onto her knees as he mirrored her. 

Marinette’s hands roamed from the sides of Chat’s face into his hair, weaving through strands and tugging lightly to deepen the already bruising kiss.

“Wait wait wait” Chat murmured against her lips, reluctantly pulling away.

“How much of this is you and how much is your dreams?

Marinette frowned, “what?”

“I just mean…You’ve never shown an interest in me before as Ladybug. You actually have actively rejected me any chance you got so what’s changed?”

His question caused a jolt of pain in her chest, recognizing its similarity to what the Chat in her dream had asked. 

“Truthfully Chat, I’ve had feelings towards you for a wile now, it just took these dreams to make me realize them”

She reached fro one of his hands, cradling it in hers 

“For a while I thought the feelings I had for you were just because of our partnership. Partially because I was infatuated with a boy from school and couldn’t see beyond my crush. But then my dreams started, and I realized that my feelings towards you weren’t that different from how past holders felt about each other.”

Before she realized what she was doing, she had lifted his hand up to her mouth, placing a light kiss before resting it over her heart. 

“Can you feel how fast my heart is beating? What I feel about you is real, and I’m tired of running from it”

She paused

“Do you feel the same way about me?”

Chat brushed a fallen strand of hair away from her face 

“You are so beautiful Marinette, I’ve always thought so, but I refused to acknowledge it because of my feelings for Ladybug, I mean you- I mean… you know what I mean.” He said with a laugh.

Marinette blushed, putting a hand against his cheek 

“So…”

“So.” He repeated, pulling her into him.

Marinette couldn’t help but giggle as they collided, laughing into the kiss.

Chat dropped their hands from his cheek and her chest before wrapping his arms around her waist.

Marinette’s armed moved to lock behind his neck, tugging at his hair lightly and provoking a purr from Chat. Which made Marinette laugh again and Chat jolt away. 

“Maybe we should stop for a moment.”

“We are in an alleyway, not the most romantic setting” Marinette agreed. 

Chat laughed, looking at their surroundings of stone and dumpsters.

He laced their fingers together “that too, but I also think it’s unfair that I know who you are, but you don’t know me.” 

Marinette’s eyes widen at Chat’s subject change.

He stood, lifting her up with him.

“I know you didn’t have a choice in me finding out your identity. So I will give you the option now. Do you want to know who I am?”

Marinette didn’t know what to do. She remembered the reasons why she hadn’t wanted them to know who each other were before, it was for their safety. But she also couldn’t help but want to know who resided under the mask.

Control what you can Marinette.

“For now, keep it secret. We don’t want to risk Hawkmoth or an akuma finding out who we are any more than we already have.”

Chat couldn’t entirely hide his disappointment, his smile dropping a little before he nodded. 

“I promise not to show or tell you until you ask me to.”

Marinette smiled, placing a quick kiss to on his cheek and Chat intertwined their hands 

“Speaking of Hawkmoth and akumas, our kwamis thought we should speak to the guardian about selecting another miraculous holder to help us while we figure out what is happening to you.”

Marinette hated to admit it, but she agreed. She and Chat couldn’t risk loosing to an akuma because she passed out in the middle of the fight. And she definitely didn’t want to leave Chat to fight the akumas alone if she was indisposed. 

She called for Tikki, who had snuck into her purse earlier to give them some space and sneak some sweets.

Quickly explaining the plan to Tikki, she transformed and the two heroes burst out of the alleyway and flew across Paris towards Master Fu’s. 

——————————————————————————

Knocking on the door, the two heroes realized they were holding hands and jumped apart quickly as the door slid open.

“Heroes of Paris, welcome” Master Fu stated, chuckling at the blushes heating the two teenagers faces.

Marinette spoke up first 

“Master Fu, we’ve come to talk to you about activating another miraculous to help me and Chat Noir.”

The Guardian nodded “I had been considering the sam thing, please follow me.”

Moving into the back room, Master Fu pressed a button on a music player and it opened to reveal a multi-compartment box that holds the miraculous tokens. 

“As you know, there are more than just Ladybug and Chat Noir miraculouses, and at times when evil powers grow to much, other holders have been chosen. As we still do not know what is causing Ladybug’s dreams or how to control them. I agree that another miraculous holder should be chosen.”

Murmuring a command, the box’s lid and compartments slid open to reveal over a dozen miraculous tokens. 

Chat moved forward to take a closer look 

“How do you choose which one Master Fu?”

The Guardian chuckled,   
“I don’t. You do. As the heroes of Paris, you know what the situation calls for better than I can.”

“So what powers do each of them have so we know which one to choose.”

Master Fu shook his head 

“You don’t need to know that either. The holder does not choose the token, a miraculous will let itself be known as the best fit for the situation at hand. As Ladybug is the one who is experiencing the anomaly, I think she is best equipped to select the token.”

Marinette gulped nervously 

“Me?” She asked hesitantly, approaching the box.

The biggest compartment of the box was missing five tokens already: hers and Chat’s which fit in the yin yang at the center, Master Fu’s turtle token, a blue one, and the token held by Hawkmoth. This left only two tokens left in the big part, a fox necklace and a bee comb. 

Marinette’s eyes stopped on the necklace with a foxtail pendant, it reminded her of Volpina. 

She thought about the akuma and her power of illusion. 

If they needed Hawkmoth and the akumas to believe they had strength where they were lacking at the moment, and the fox miraculous has the same power Volpina did, it could come in handy.

Snapping out of it, Marinette looked down to see the fox token already in her hand. 

“Ah, wise choice Ladybug.”

“Does the fox miraculous have the same power of illusion Volpina did?” Questioned Chat

“Yes. You must choose someone you trust completely with such an influential power.”

“Us?”

Master Fu frowned 

“You two must stop doubting your abilities, I made no mistake in giving you your miraculouses, and neither will you. Be cautious and consider who you want to give the power of the fox miraculous to carefully. I trust you to make the right decision.”

———————————————————————————————

After leaving Master Fu’s, Ladybug and Chat Noir went on patrol, checking for any akuma activity but Paris was quiet. 

And so, Ladybug and Chat Noir found themselves resting on the Eiffel Tower with Ladybug leaning with her back against Chat’s chest. They were playing with each others hands, looking out over the view of Paris at sunset. 

“I wish it was always this quiet” Ladybug sighed. 

“I wish we could stay like this forever” countered Chat as he placed a kiss to Ladybug’s shoulder, making her giggle. 

“We do have to go home at some point. I don’t know about you but my parents will worry if my bed isn’t slept in tomorrow morning.”

Chat let out a huff

“My father wouldn’t notice, his assistant might but he almost never checks up on me.”

Ladybug was surprised at Chat’s sudden sad tone, and pulled his arms tight around her waist as she cuddled into him. 

“Ugh, no…I don’t want to let you go!” Chat groaned, nuzzling into Ladybug’s neck, peppering it with kisses.

“You don’t have to yet, we still have to choose someone to wield the fox miraculous.” Ladybug said, squirming around in Chat’s grasp until she was able to face him, an excited look on her face. 

“I’m guessing you already have an idea on who?” Chat laughed, running a hand down Ladybug’s arm.

“I think we both know someone who has the same amount of passion about the protection of Paris as we do.”

“Which is…” Chat probed, a mocking grin appearing in his expression.

“Alya Césaire.” 

“Alya?!” Chat jolted, “creator of the Ladyblog Alya?”

“Who else has the dedication she has?”

“She is quite brave” added Chat, thinking out loud “never hesitating to get into the thick of things to show people what’s happening with akumas.”

He pinched the bottom of his lip, lost in concentration for a moment 

“Alright I agree” he admitted “Alya seems like a great choice” 

Ladybug squealed, eyes sparkling in excitement as she peppered Chat’s face in kisses.

“It’s getting late, we should probably be getting home” Chat reluctantly announced, barely catching his breath from laughing. 

Chat convinced Ladybug to let him escort her back home to make sure she didn’t pass out before getting back safely. She agreed before making him race after her on her yoyo all the way to the balcony. 

“Well we can finally put that question to rest” she uttered gleefully when he climbed up onto the balcony. 

“One…” Chat proposed, completely out of breath “you are adorable. Two, what question?” He asked, pulling her into him.

“The question of which of us is faster” she declared, grinning wickedly “I beat you here by at least 30 seconds. You were behind me the whole time!”

“And what if I just like watching you?” Chat proposed, leaning back against the balcony rail amused.

Ladybug took a few steps forward, closing off the distance between them.

“Maybe you should pay more attention to what is going on around you kitty” she purred, leaning in until Chat closed his eyes “or you might miss what’s right in front of you” she whispered, taking a step back.

Chat opened his eyes to see a detransformed Marinette in front of him. 

What caught his gaze though was the figure watching from the now raised hatch in the skylight.

“Um…Marinette?” He asked, pointing behind her to where Alya stood, jaw dropped.

“What the hell?!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this chapter took a bit longer! Midterms were hell.


	11. Partners

Marinette just about had a heart attack.

“Alya? What are you doing here?” She yelped once she had recovered somewhat from the shock of her best friend discovering her secret identity.

“I came to see if you had heard the latest gossip, but that hardly matters now! Were you ever going to tell me?”

Chat’s eyes shifted back and forth between the two girls, laughing nervously as he ran a hand through his hair 

“Believe it or not, we were going to tell you tomorrow.”

Alya rolled her eyes “I’m sure lover boy. May I have a moment alone with my now former best friend?” 

Marinette winced “Alya, I-“

“You don’t get to say anything right now” Alya shouted at Marinette a bit too loudly before glaring at Chat “now shoo cat.”

Despite being the one in a superhero uniform, Chat looked the most scared of the rage rolling off of Alya’s tiny form.

“Yeah, I have to get home anyways. I will-um…see you guys later I guess” he stumbled before quite literally flinging himself off of the balcony, leaving the two girls alone.

Alya turned her attention back to Marinette 

“Why didn’t you tell me? Do you not trust me? I thought we were best friends, that we told each other everything.”

Marinette winced at Alya’s words

“Of course I trust you! I was protecting you!”

“Protecting me?” Alya scoffed “protecting me from what? Knowing my best friend?” She said, crossing her arms.

“You do know me Alya! But if you haven’t noticed, a super villain is akumatizing the citizens of Paris with the goal of stealing mine and Chat’s miraculous and no one seems safe from his powers. What if I told someone I was Ladybug and then they got akumatized, they would know who I am and they would tell Hawkmoth. Or what if an akuma hurt someone I care about because Hawkmoth was able to connect them to Ladybug?” 

A tear slipped down her cheek 

“You can be mad at me, but I will not apologize for wanting to keep you safe.”

Looking up, Marinette saw that Alya was crying too as she closed the space between them, embracing her in a tight hug.

“I’m sorry Mari, I guess I wasn’t thinking about it like that. Thank you for keeping me and everyone else in Paris safe” she said, rubbing a hand soothingly up and down Marinette’s back. 

“I’ve always admired you Marinette, and now that I know what you’ve done for Paris, I love you even more. I mean, all the hours spent fighting akumas, how do ou get your homework done? How do you sleep?”

Marinette laughed, pulling out of their embrace

“It’s difficult sometimes, but I wouldn’t change it for anything. I love being Ladybug. I love-“

“Chat Noir?” Alya finished, wiggling her eyebrows “I saw you two when I first got here, seemed like you two are pretty close.”

Marinette laughed nervously 

“Of course we’re close, we’re partners”

“Just partners?” Alya asked, her eyebrows raised as she pulls out her phone “This looks a lot more than just partners” she teased, turning her phone screen towards Marinette to show an article with the headline PARIS HEROES IN LOVE? with a photo of Ladybug and Chat Noir holding hands as on the Eiffel Tower. 

This wasn’t the first time tabloids had speculated that Ladybug and Chat Noir were together, but this was the first time that there was truth behind them. 

Alya snickered at Marinette’s expression of horror. 

“This is what I came to show you, I wanted you to help me come up with a response to the article for the Ladyblog. But from what I saw between you two and the look on your face, I’m guessing it’s maybe not the best idea…”

Marinette nodded 

“Thank you for not pushing the matter-“

“Wait a minute” Alya interrupted “I saw you be Ladybug AND Marinette with him. So he knows both of your identities! Do you know who Chat Noir is?”

Marinette shook her head 

“He asked if I wanted to, and I said no. It’s already a danger for him to know who I am, I dont want to risk any more than we are already.”

Alya shrugged 

“I guess it makes sense, although it’s less fun for me.” 

Alya’s phone buzzed and her eyes widened as she read the text

“I didn’t realize it was so late! My mom is freaking out cuz I’m supposed to watch my siblings so she can go to work.”

She raced over to the hatch leading down into Marinette’s room but paused before going down 

“Don’t think for a moment that I will have a thousand questions for you by the time school starts tomorrow.” 

Marinette laughed 

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

——————————————————————

Marinette slept soundly for the solid three hours she got before her alarm sounded off at the ungodly hour of 6AM.

Despite not having gotten that much sleep, it was more than she had had since the dreams started. This didn’t mean she felt well rested though, having almost mistaken salt for sugar during her morning chores in the bakery. 

Normally when Marinette got to school she would find Alya with Nino, but as soon as she past through the gate today Alya came plowing into her.

“Took you long enough! I have so many questions about you being Ladybug!”

“Wanna say that a bit louder? I’m not sure people on the other side of Paris can hear you.”

Alya threw a hand over her mouth 

“Ah I’m sorry! I promise I will get better at this, I’m just really excited!” Alya whispered loudly, linking her arm through Marinette’s.

“I can tell” Marinette responded, giggling “Where’s Nino?” She asked “Aren’t you two normally attached at the hip before classes?” 

Alya blushed “yeah, but I told him I needed some alone time with m best friend this morning. He’s over there somewhere” she said, gesturing towards the benches on the other side of the courtyard. 

Following the direction Alya was pointing, she spotted Nino standing with Adrien, both trying hard not to seem like they had been watching the two girls.

The bell rang, announcing first period and the courtyard emptied. Alya said something about needing to stop by her locker and ran off, leaving Marinette to be the last one outside. 

She took a breath, relishing in the quiet before swaying a bit and having to catch her balance. 

Nope. Not today Satan.

She shook her head, clearing any weariness from her head before making her way to class. 

Chloe was bragging about some new designer part of her ensemble when Marinette walked into class. So, a normal day.

Breaking out of the grasp Chloe had on his arm, Adrien turned to Marinette.

“Good morning Marinette.”

Normally such a simple remark from him would have made her weak at the knees, but now, with all what was happening with her and Chat, she found she had lost her starstruck infatuation over Adrien. 

Not that she suddenly found him unattractive, it’s just she didn’t find it hard to concentrate, or breath for that matter around him anymore. 

“Hi Adrien, how are you?” 

The boy seemed almost taken aback by her ability to speak to him in a complete sentence

“I’m great…” he trailed off, looking as if he was trying to find something in her expression.

Marinette laughed awkwardly, breaking the silence

“How were classes yesterday? I was…home sick, anything interesting happen?”

Adrien shook out of his stare

“I uh, I wasn’t-I wasn’t here yesterday either.”

Marinette shrugged 

“Glad to know someone will be as confused as me with the lesson plan today” she said laughing.

She used the palm of her hadn’t to wipe any sleep from her eyes as she sat down in her seat and turned her attention to the teacher. 

When lunch break came around, Alya and Marinette fled to the school theater for some privacy. Hiding in the back row of the audience seating, Marinette attempted to quietly answer any and all questions from Alya that she could.

How did she get the miraculous?

How does the super suit feel? 

When did she meet Chat Noir?

What is the purpose of Chat’s tail?

How did it feel to fight her first akuma?

How many other miraculous are there?

Have her and Chat found a way to stop Hawkmoth? It hurt to answer that one.

Was it true Chloe was the cause of a high percentage of akumas?

How long have her and Chat Noir been a thing? 

Marinette blushed when that question came around, answering only that it was a very recent development. 

Which only provoked more questions from Alya.

The lighting in the theater wasn’t really all that good, and it seemed like it had only gotten darker as they’d been there. 

Marinette was hit by a wave of drowsiness, and had trouble keeping her eyes open.

Before she even had time to let Alya know what was going on she was out like a light, having spent her last few moments of consciousness questioning what awaited her as darkness descended. 

——————————————————————

She couldn’t really help but laugh at the predicament she was in. 

She knew it would happen eventually, but she hadn’t thought she would have had to face it so soon.

And yet here she was, stuck in the embarrassing situation of having a man down on one knee before her as the whole family watched. 

“Mary, will you do me the greatest honor of accepting my proposal and becoming my wife?” The man asked, his hand clutching hers just a bit too tightly. 

Mary spent a moment to list all the other things she would rather have to endure than this.

She would have preferred to have been used as a target during archery practice.

She would have rather had to run through the cold city of London in winter wearing only her undergarments.

She would have accepted the swift death of execution by decapitation or the warm reception of being burned to death.

She would trade anything to be run through with a javelin at this point in time rather than be standing before the man her family expected her to marry at this moment.

“Kind sir, you do me a great honor…” she trailed off, searching her relative’s expressions for hint of sympathy for her situation. 

The closest she got was her cousin, who was hiding tears of jealousy for me being the one proposed to and not her. 

I would trade places with her in a heartbeat. 

Closing her eyes, Mary dreamt of where her heart yearned to be as she chocked out the words that signed the end of her life at just age 15

“I accept your proposal, Lord Hawkmoth.”


	12. The Horsemen

After several painstaking hours of listening to congratulations from what seemed like every member at court, Mary finally had been allowed to retire to her chambers. 

She was free. 

She waited for her lady’s maid to leave for the night before peeing off her blankets and racing to her closet. 

Reaching into the back of her closet, Mary pulled out a coat and pants from under a pile of dresses. 

Quickly slipping them on, Mary knelt down in front of the chest by her window, and pulled out a long line of tied together sheets that she threw out her window.

Her family had gotten what they wanted, all day, now that it’s night, it’s her turn.

Climbing down the sheets to the ground below, Mary quickly hides behind the rose bushes to wait out the guards go on their next rotation. With how often she snuck out, she had it down to a science.

Once the guards had rounded the corner, she quickly ran to the gates surrounding the castle, scaled them with ease and broke out into a run on the other side, going as quickly as she could towards the Globe Theater.

Mary snuck into the theater with ease, from her perch on the balcony of the theater she could watch unseen as a player practiced his lines on an otherwise empty stage.

“If we shadows have offended, think but this, and all is mended  
That you have all but slumber’d here while these visions did appear. And this weak and idle theme, no more yielding…no more yielding…uh-Than a dream!…ummm.”

Mary had moved during the monologue, sitting on the railing of the balcony to match more closely, legs hanging over the edge.

The player gazed down at the script in his hand to right himself

“Right! Gentiles, do not reprehend; if you pardon, we will mend…uh-“

“And, as I am a honest Puck” Mary’s voice rang out, startling the player “If we have unearned luck” she continued “Now to ‘scape the serpent’s tongue, we will make amends ere long…”

The player sat down on the stage gesturing for her to continue.

“Else the Puck a liar call” Mary proclaimed, voice taunting as she jumped from the balcony rail, landing on the hay covered ground below “So, goodnight unto you all” 

She moved to stand before the player “Give me your hands, if we be friends” she reached out to grab the player’s offered hand “and Robin shall restore amends” she finished in a whisper, barely any distance between her and the player left at all. 

The man cupped her face with his hand, thumb brushing gently across her cheek.

“Now where did a lady like you find the time to memories all that?” He asked with a grin, using his free hand to pull the cap from off her head, her wavy hair cascade down her shoulders. 

“It couldn’t be because I’ve heard you practice it a hundred times” she teased

“But even I don’t have it memorized yet, and I’m Robin Goodfellow” he argued, a slight whine in his tone.

“Perhaps I just appreciate the Bard more than you do” Mary countered with a laugh

“Now that can’t be true, I appreciate the man greatly” the player responded both his arms moving to wrap around her waist 

“After all, he pays me to bring his characters to life. There are few people in this world I admire more” he finished, his voice faltering a bit as Mary leaned into him, leaving less than an inch between them.

The player’s gaze travels down, pausing around her chest, and Mary uses the crook of her finger on his chin to lift his eyes till they meet hers

“Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind…” she trails off, cupping the player’s face

“And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind” the player finished as his mouth enveloped hers. 

Mary smiled into the kiss, but kept it short, pulling away after a few moments. 

“So you know that verse but not your own?”

“I find it easier to connect with characters in love, they say act from what you know” the player said with a grin, pulling Mary back into them.

Mary let herself melt into the kiss, fingers brushing into his hair. 

When they finally pull away, Mary’s eyes are gleaming with tears

“I’ve missed you Alexander, you wouldn’t believe the day I’ve had” she croaked as she collapsed into Alexander’s open arms.

“It can’t be all that bad” 

“But it is, I am-“

A man came crashing into the theater, blood spilling like tears from his eyes.

“My God” Alexander exclaimed, “what’s happening to you?”

The man opened his mouth to speak, but broke into a coughing fit that sent him collapsing to the ground. 

Mary moved to help him but Alexander grabbed her wrist pulling her back towards him

“Don’t go near him, we don’t know what caused this, it might be contagious”

“He needs out help-“

The man convulsed on the ground, blood spluttering from his mouth before he went still. 

Mary had never seen someone die until now, she buried her face in Alexander’s chest but was unable to get the dead man’s blank stare out of her mind.

Alexander insisted on walking her home.

“I’m alright, I promise.”

“You shouldn’t have to be Mary, I wish you hadn’t seen that.”

“But I did Alexander” the image of the dead man flashed in her mind “what could do that to a person?

“A horseman” a voice rang out behind them.

The two lovers spun, quickly releasing each other’s hands.

“No need, I have been watching you two for a while now, your secret is safe with me.”

Alexander stepped in front of Mary 

“What do you want from us?”

“I need your help, a terrible evil is coming, and London needs someone to stop it.”

“War?” Mary asked, stepping out from Alex’s shadow.

“That will be one of them yes. You have already seen the arrival of one, his brothers are sure to follow.”

Brothers? War? The man from the theater? 

Wait. The theater had said…

“Are you talking about-“

“Yes, the four horsemen: Pestilence, War, Famine, and Death.”

——————————————————————————————

It had been months since that night at the theater, months with London under attack by the horsemen, Mary and Alexander were hardly holding them at bay. 

Of course the two hadn’t believed the “Guardian” at first, but then London had engaged in a conflict with the neighboring country, sending the Queen’s country into ruin.

Next came starvation, leaving London weak and powerless by the time a plague swept through the city, taking out almost half of the population. 

Now Mary and Alexander spent every waking moment attempting to prevent the arrival of the final horseman, Death.

“You can’t fight forever Ladybug. I have fought wars that have lasted longer than three of your human lifetimes.”

Mary grinned despite being exhausted

“Then it’s about time you find out what it’s like to loose” she yells as she swings towards the Horseman of War.

He avoided her swing and sliced up towards Ladybug with her sword, missing her by less than an inch.

“You can prolong this as much as you want Ladybug, but you can’t stop my brother from awakening and burying the whole city.”

Mary looked over and saw Alexander collapse against the combined power of Famine and Pestilence.

War froze, looking towards his brothers before turning back to Mary with a grin

“The battle is won.”

Mary disregarded his comment, flinging herself towards Chat Noir, using the force of her swing to kick away the two horsemen that were covering Alexander, but he was no longer there.

She shook her head, she must have missed him getting free. 

Turning back to War, Mary found that he had been joined with his brothers, all mounted on their horses. 

“You fought courageously Ladybug, but our brother has awakened” Pestilence purred. 

“What do you mean-“ 

A horse whinny sounded as a fourth horseman rode up to meet his brothers. 

Alexander?

He remained in his transformation but it had altered to mimic the long hooded cloaks of the other horsemen, his black cat ears hidden underneath.

“Hello Mary”

“Alexander, what are you doing?”

“I had hoped it would be you Ladyb-Mary, was it?” War laughed “you had shown far more skill than your counterpart…”

Death held up his hand, palm up and fingers bent 

“But if anyone was gong to be my vessel, it would be someone designed to destroy and evoke chaos. Cataclysm!” He shouted, his clawed hand filling with swirling destructive power “goodbye Mary. I would pretend to be sorry, but we can’t have you standing in our way” he declared to her coldly.

Mary closed her eyes as he charged. 

Moments passed. 

Mary didn’t feel like she had been destroyed by Chat Noir’s chaotic powers of destruction…

She opened one eye, then another, and spotted a woman in orange playing some sort of flute, and lying on the ground in front of the woman was….her?

Someone dressed like her lay destroyed by the cataclysm, body surrounded by the four horsemen.

Another figure put a hand on Mary’s shoulder and she looked up to see a figure in purple

“We have to go, we aren’t sure how long Rena’s illusions can last, and I would prefer if we don’t find out.”

Mary yanked out of the man’s grasp

“How do I know I can trust you?”

The man looked up towards the woman in orange to make sure the illusion was still in place.

“The Guardian sent us Mary.”

Her eyes widened 

“How do you know my name?”

“Because you know mine” the man sighed, before releasing his transformation to reveal…

“Lord Hawkmoth?”

“Gregory, please. Now will you please let us rescue you?”

Nodding absentmindedly, Mary followed the two figures away from the horsemen, who began to scream the moment the illusion of her being dead evaporated. 

Eventually, the three of them arrived in front of the Globe Theater.

“The Guardian wanted us to meet up somewhere you would recognize. Guess you spend a lot of time here...”

“Lord Hawkmoth-I mean Gregory, I’m sorry.”

“I understand” he interrupted, holding up a hand “our relationship is an alliance and device for our families to exploit. Plus…”

“Darling, I was worried!”

A woman in blue approached the two and pressed a kiss to Hawkmoth’s cheek.

“Uh-“ 

Hawkmoth gestured towards Mary and the woman sprung away, blushing furiously. 

“My lady, I apologize, please don’t-“

“Anne right?” Her lady’s maid. “I’m glad to see you.”

Mary turned to Hawkmoth and Rena, 

“Thank you for saving me. Now, can someone tell me what’s going on?”

The Guardian stepped out from the wings of the stage dramatically

“Always the dramatic, aren’t you William” Mary said, chuckling slightly.

“Well, it is my job.”

You’re telling me there are more Miraculous than mine and Chat’s? And you’re only telling me this now?! If we had more help before, maybe Chat wouldn’t be-“

“I’m sorry Mary, I really am. I couldn’t intervene until the fourth horseman appeared. Other miraculous holders are only to be activated in the most dire of circumstances.”

“Poetically put Bard, now you won’t mind if I poetically-“

Hawkmoth stepped between them.

“Lady Mary, I know you are upset, but it is the horsemen we should focus our anger towards.”

Rena nods 

“They decimated London, they killed my family, and now they will pay.”

“How?!” Mary cried out “Alexander and I have been fighting against them for months and achieved nothing but slowing them down. And now we don’t even have Chat’s powers so how do you suggest we defeat the four horsemen of the apocalypse?”

“With our combined strengths and power we will be able to Mary” Anne declared, grasping Mary’s hand in hers “I promise.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Because being clairvoyant is the power of the Peacock miraculous” Shakespeare interrupted “She can perceive what is yet to happen, that is how we knew where to find you.”

Mary’s eyes widened and she looks around at the other holders before stopping on Rena

“And you have the power of illusion?”

Nod.

“And what can you do Hawkmoth?” 

The lord grinned 

“I can temporarily give powers to those without a miraculous based on their qualities” his grin faded “which isn’t that useful with how empty London is because of the horsemen.”

Mary nods, a plan starting to formulate in her mind.

From the amount of shows she’s seen and how often she visited Alexander here, Mary knows the theater like the back of her hand.

“Okay, I have a plan. We will draw the horsemen here and-“

“Not my beautiful theater! Isn’t there a-“

William pauses, looking around at the judgmental stares from the group and holds up his hands in surrender, waving for Mary to continue with her plan 

“Rena, how big of an illusion can you make?”

——————————————————————————————

This will work, this has to work. 

Using her lucky charm, Mary had been able to lure out the horsemen and was now being chased by them down the streets of London. 

Nearing the theater, Mary passed Rena, who disguised her so she dropped out of the horsemen’s vision long enough that the two could get to the theater, release their transformations quickly and rest their akumas.

“How do you know she’s here?” Mary could hear Famine ask outside the entrance to the theater.

“I still have access to Chat Noir’s memories, although he is resisting. The two have many memories tied to this place, human sentimental attachment is one of their greatest flaws.”

The four horsemen entered and were met with a theater filled to the brim with audience members laughing as Tom Snout acts as a wall separating Pyramus and Thisbe in a performance of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Thank you Rena. 

Immediately, Pestilence attempts to infect the audience to no prevail. 

Pushing his brother aside, War unsheathe his sword and plunges it into the chest of the nearest person.

“What trickery is this?” Death bellowed, calling out for Ladybug.

The horsemen move towards the exit but are met with walls of air as hard as stone thanks to Shakespeare using his power of protection to keep anything rom coming in and more importantly, out.

“You wish to play games Ladybug? My brothers and I are thousands of years old, we can wait until you, and whoever is helping you are exhausted and vulnerable. Why not make it easier on yourselves and give up now. I promise it will be painless” Death purred.

Looking across the theater to where Hawkmoth hid, Mary watched as he formed a butterfly in a his hands before she signaled for Rena to dissolve her illusion, leaving Mary as the only figure on stage.

Death grinned wickedly, and Mary had to remind herself that this was not her Alexander that stood before her.

“It appears that the last time I killed you it didn’t take, a first for me I’ll admit. I welcome the challenge” Death spat, as he motioned for his brothers to attack.

But they stayed where they were.

Turning, Death found Pestilence and Famine ashen, cracks spreading across their faces as they crumbled into dust, revealing War breathing heavily, his sword in his hand and oozing the black blood of the horsemen.

“What have you done?!” Death shrieked

War only directed his sword towards Death, his response only being a cool “Yes, Hawkmoth.” 

They were so close to winning. 

From what Anne had been able to tell them without influencing how events would play out, she was right that only a horseman could kill another horseman. 

So, Hawkmoth had used his powers to influence the horseman of War and convince him to kill his brothers. 

Now it was Death’s turn, who’s expression looked as if this was the first time he ever mourned someone’s death.

He took a step back and held out his arms

“Finally…” 

War lunged. 

Wait, what had Death said?

He had told his brothers that Alexander was fighting him, which means…

“No!” 

Mary attached her yoyo to one of the theater’s beams and swung herself in front fo War’s blade. 

“Do not harm her!” Hawkmoth shouted and War froze, keeping his sword aimed at Death.

“Is Alexander still in there?”

No response.

“Answer me!”

“Yes.” Death responded, void of emotion

“Can he be saved?”

“No.”

Then she had no choice. 

“Can I speak to him?”

Defeated, Death simply nodded, looking as if he disappeared into himself 

“Mary?” Came the hesitant voice of Alexander “Mary you need to kill me, Death doesn’t want to live without his brothers but he plans on taking you with him!”

Mary looked over to where Anne stood, asking silently:

Was this ever going to end any other way?

Anne shook her head and Mary knew what she had to do.

Mary watched as Anne whispered to Hawkmoth, who moved to object but Mary was already in motion. 

She ran towards Death and watched as Alexander’s expression was replaced with Death’s as she fell into his embrace.

“I love you Alexander” Mary whispered as her whole body shut down, and watched in her last moments as War plunged his sword through her and Death before turning the weapon on himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long to write, hope you enjoyed the Shakespeare aspect :)


	13. Rena Rouge

“Marinette? Marinette! Someone help!” 

Alya hadn’t noticed Marinette was unconscious at first, thinking they had just fallen into a lull in their conversation at first. 

The theater was completely secluded, and Marinette was too heavy to carry, and so she ran as quickly as she could to find help.

“Alya? What’s wrong?”

“Adrien! Thank goodness! Marinette passed out and I can’t wake her up. I had to leave her alone to get help but now that you’re here I can go back to her while yo get help” Alya rambled until she ran out of breath. 

Adrien looked towards the theater 

“Did you hear me? Adrien!”

The boy took a deep breath “Alya, I know it’s weird but you’re just gonna have to trust me, we can’t let anyone see Marinette like this” he took a step closer and lowered his voice “if it got back to Hawkmoth and he somehow was able to tie her to being Ladybug-“

“Wait, you know Marinette is Ladybug? Did she tell you before me? Rude.”

“No no, Alya,it wasn’t like that. I kind of…found out.” He took a step back and turned towards the theater “we should get back to Marinette, she’ll be disoriented when she wakes up.”

Alya had no idea what was going on, but gestured towards the theater, letting Adrien lead the way. 

As soon as they were inside the theater, Adrien raced to Marinette’s side, brushing the hair out of her face.

“Lunch is almost over, which means this place will be filled with drama class, we can’t keep her here, and she probably won’t wake up before then. We need to move her.”

Alya was ready to flip some theater seats 

“Look Adrien, you need to explain what’s going on here, because you seem to know way more than me…”

Adrien lifted Marinette slightly to sit her more comfortably on the seat before turning back to Alya. 

He seemed to battle internally for a moment before giving in.

“Marinette has been having dreams that cause her to loose consciousness.”

He said it so nonchalantly that Alya wanted to slap him to wipe the calm expression off his face.

“Loosing consciousness? I don’t know if you realized this but that’s not a good thing Adrien! How long ha this been going on? How many teams has she had? How long do they last?”

Adrien turned back towards Marinette, checking for returning consciousness as he answers 

“She started having these dreams about a week ago, there have been five dreams, or at least five dreams that she’s told me about, there may be more, not including the one leaving Marinette in her current state. As for how long they last, some dreams only minutes like when she lost consciousness in the school courtyard and others take ours for her to snap out of it.”

“So how do we know how long she will be like this?” She asked, pulling on her hair nervously. 

“Tikki says there’s no way of knowing-wait, where is Tikki?”

Reaching for Marinette’s purse, Adrien opens the clasp and a giant red insect comes flying out, fluttering right in front of Adrien.

“New rule! Any time Marinette gets a dream, you immediately let me out! That goes for you too Alya, now that you’re in the loop” the bug said pointing towards the confused girl before flying over to check on Marinette.

“Adrien, what the hell is that bug thing and why can it talk?”

“Her name is Tikki, and she is the source of Ladybug’s powers. Marinette didn’t tell you about any of this yet?”

Alya moved to shake her head when the akuma alert she had made for her Ladyblog went off

“There’s a new akuma sighting near the river! What are we gonna do with Ladybug not able to show up? We have to find Chat Noir and tell him that Ladybug won’t be showing up.”

Adrien stood from his seat next to Marinette’s

“Don’t worry, he already knows. Tikki, where did Marinette put the box with the fox miraculous?”

“It’s in her desk at home.”

Adrien nodded 

“Alright, here’s the plan. I’ll carry Marinette back to her room, I’ll go in through the balcony so her parents don’t see me. Alya, you will follow us but come in through the bakery, say something about Marinette asking you to grab a book she forgot. We’ll go on from there”

Alya rolled her eyes 

“Adrien, I know you’re a fencer or whatever, but there’s no way you can carry Marinette all the way home without dropping her. Maybe we can-“

Alya stopped, too shocked to speak as she watched Adrien be consumed by darkness, a green light illuminating his silhouette.

“What is happening-“

When the darkness lifted, Chat Noir stood where Adrien had been 

A million thoughts were flying at full speed through Alya’s mind and she couldn’t decide what comment took priority so she just stared, jaw open and eyes wide as all the clues she had gathered to the identities of Ladybug and Chat Noir all fell into place.

“Don’t worry, I think I can carry her” Adrien said teasingly.

The side door to the theater opened and in an instant Adrien had scooped Marinette and her purse up into his arms and fled out the door before the first student filled inside, leaving Alya to run after them through the exit.

She couldn’t help but laugh as she walked quickly through the school hallways and out the front doors. Marinette is going to loose it when she finds out. 

——————————————————————

“So, Marinette is Ladybug, you’re Chat Noir, and if I open this box, I’ll be a hero too?”

Adrien nods,

“That’s about it, but know it’s completely your choice. You don’t have to accept Alya, if you’re going to agree to this, you need to know the dangers and sacrifices that come with it.”

Alya sat next to Marinette where she lay on the window seat in her room

“Marinette knew the risks, and she chose to protect Paris, so do I” 

Serious moment over, Alya couldn’t help but grin. Not only would it be cool to be a superhero, but be superhero partners with her best friend?! 

Alya grabbed the box Adrien held out to her 

“Let’s do this.”

Opening the box, a ball of light flew out, bursting to reveal a tiny creature like Tikki, but this one looked more like a fox.

“Hi! I’m Trixx, the kwami of the fox miraculous which gives the wielder the power of illusion” 

Trixx was attacked from behind by Tikki, and the two kwamis squealed as they embraced.

Alya felt like she was about to pass out from trying so hard to hold back her fangirling. 

“So you’re what gives a hero their powers?”

The little fox bobbed their head in a yes 

“Which is channeled through the talisman” the kwami added, indicating to the fox tail miraculous still in the box “All you gotta do to transform is put it on and say ‘Trixx, let’s pounce!’”

Alya quickly and basically bouncing from excitement followed the kwami’s directions and repeated the words.

Alya watched as she was was consumed by an orange mist that clouded her vision before it dispersed, revealing her transformation.

Alya practically danced to the mirror, exhilaration running ramped through her as she observed her appearance in Marinette’s mirror. 

Skin tingling, Alya took everything in: hair, outfit, mask, and the flute attached to her back.

Alya’s hair was now in a ponytail, tips of her hair frosted white with fox ears protruding from the top of her head. 

Epic.

Her outfit was orange and white to match her mask, with black covering her legs, arms, and neck. Similar to Chat Noir’s tail, her suit had a coattail that mimicked a fox.

Love.

The flute attached to her back seemed to be calling to her, begging for her to play a note.

Inspired.

“Alya, I know this is overwhelming and awesome, trust me, I know, but we should really be going.”

Alya turned turned away from the mirror to face him, hazel eyes gleaming beneath her mask.

“Just call me Rena Rouge.”

Adrien nodded with a laugh 

“We don’t know how long Marinette is going to be out, so we have to assume that we are on our own.”

Alya looked down somberly at her unconscious friend, she would just have to tell Marinette about her first time being a superhero when she wakes up.

“I don’t want to leave her alone.”

Tikki flew up from the bakery below where she had snatched up a macaroon.

“Don’t worry Alya, I’ll look over her, and we will join you as soon as she wakes. Now go defend Paris.”

Alya felt as if she was about to explode with eagerness to try out her new powers as she followed Adrien off the balcony and across the city towards where the akuma had been sighted. 

——————————————————————

 

“How. Do. You. Guys. Do. This. Every. Day” Alya asked, completely out of breath. 

Chat Noir and Rena Rouge had fought the akuma for over an hour before they were able to free the akumatized victim. 

Without Ladybug’s ability to de-evilize the butterfly however, the two heroes couldn’t do anything once the akuma was separated. 

They chased the little black and purple glowing butterfly for a while but it was as if it knew they were following and vanished into the clouds. 

Alya was ready to pass out, exhausted from today’s events.

“I can’t tell you that it gets easier Alya, and getting used to it isn’t the right word, but you grow more able to handle it, the good and the bad.”

Adrien’s eyes glow a bit brighter “especially when you have a partner” he adds absentmindedly. 

Alya grins “Partners? That’s how you’d describe your and Marinette’s relationship?”

Adrien’s catlike eyes snapped to hers 

“Why? Did Marinette say something?”

Alya groaned 

“You two really are lovesick” Alya teases.

Her foxtail necklace beeps, leaving only one section still glowing, she was going to loose her transformation soon.

Adrien checked his ring and looked around at their surroundings 

“Looks like we’re both about out of time. Let’s find somewhere private to change back and then go see how Marinette is doing.”

Alya agreed and the two heroes found an empty alleyway. 

Adrien changed back right away but Alya held her transformation a minute longer until it released on its own.

Alya fell to her knees, feeling like she had been punched a hundred times in the gut.

Adrien knelt down beside her and put a hand on her shoulder comfortingly 

“I know, it sucks the first time, it’s like coming down suddenly from a serious sugar high, you’ll get used to it-“

“Your keeping me!” Came the high pitched voice of Trixx as the little fox was hit full force by a small black kwami.

“I knew they were going to pull you next! I just knew it!” Screeched Plagg before bombarding the little fox with questions about the other kwamis.

“Plagg, we need to get back to Marinette” Adrien stated and the kwami huffed out a sigh, but nodded. 

“What are we waiting for? Where there’s Marinette, there’s her bakery, and where there is a bakery, there is cheese! And I’m starving.”

“Me too!” Trixx added “its been a while since I’ve been activated, I need to get my strength up if fighting akumas is going to become a constant thing.”

“Hopefully not” Adrien said “we come closer every day to finding out what Hawkmoth is” he grinned, looking down at his feet “that’s what Marinette says” he added, his face flushing. 

Alya nudged Adrien with her shoulder and wiggled her eyebrows, making the blond model turn an even deeper shade of pink.

Plagg flitted over to Adrien and started to say some teasing remark but Alya interrupted, wanting to take some of the attention off the boy to make up for embarrassing him.

“Speaking of Hawkmoth, how are we supposed to catch the akumatized butterfly? It’s probably already gotten back to Hawkmoth by now. Can the butterfly akumatize the same victim again since it wasn’t de-evilized?”

Trixx looked to Plagg who shrugged

“I’m not sure, but Master Fu would know, his house isn’t that far from here.” 

The black cat kwami turned to Adrien

“Mind if we make a little stop before going back to Marinette?”

Adrien looked back in the direction of Marinette’s and nods

“Lets make it quick, we don’t know what state Marinette will be in when she wakes up.”

Alya had been looking back and forth between the Adrien and the kwamis for the past few minutes.

“I’m loving the plan guys, but can someone please tell me who Master Fu is?”

As they walked the few blocks to Master Fu’s, Adrien explained who the guardian is and what he protects, and by the time they were turning the last corner, Alya was already obsessed and filled with questions. 

Both teenagers froze in their tracks when Master Fu’s massage shop came into view.

The sign for the shop said closed but the door was ajar, and at a closer look the two heroes saw it had been ripped off its hinges. 

“Adrien, what’s going on-“ 

The boy held a finger to his lips to quiet her and motioned for her to follow him over to the shop’s front windows to peer inside.

The bamboo dividers between the main room and Master Fu’s personal quarters had been smashed apart. The scrolls that had decorated the walls were in tatters and glass shards covered the ground.

In the center of the main room on the massage mat was Master Fu, standing still as a man in purple and back dress with a silver mask circled him.

“It took me a long time, but I finally found you. I will not ask again old man. You will tell me where the miraculouses are, and the identity of Chat Noir and Ladybug!”

Master Fu simply straightened his red shirt 

“You already know my answer Hawkmoth. It will not change.”

Hawkmoth. 

Adrien and Alya looked at each other. This was the man responsable for akumatizing the citizens of Paris and terrorizing the city.

“Adrien, that’s Hawkmoth! What are we going to do?!”

Adrien was at a lost for words and his mouth, his expression unreadable as he searched for a plan.

The kwamis hadn’t eaten anything yet to bring back up their energy, there was no way they would be able to handle a fight. 

If only Marinette was here, she would have a plan. 

“Give up Hawkmoth, your powers were not meant to be used this way!’ The two heroes could hear Master Fu shout from inside 

“I have no choice Guardian!” Hawkmoth growled, throwing one of Master Fu’s chimes across the room.

Adrien turned to Alya

“I’m going in.”

“But you’re not in your transformation!”

“We can’t wait!” 

Nodding, Alya followed him to the front door of Master Fu’s shop, but were stopped by the dense swarm of fluorescent butterflies blocking the entryway. They would have to find another way in.

Running around to the back of the shop Adrien climbed the dumpster to reach the window which was thankfully unlocked and he lifted himself up and in, followed closely my Alya. 

“I am running out of time old man, and so my methods grow more desperate.”

Looking through the torn screen of Master Fu’s back room, the teenagers watched as Hawkmoth’s staff was absorbed by black energy and transformed into a sword-like weapon. 

Looking towards Master Fu, Alya saw that he had spotted them, Adrien moved to step out from behind the screen but he subtly shook his head to stop him before turning his attention back to Hawkmoth.

“Please, let me help you.”

“You don’t want to help me, you want to stop me! And if you won’t do what I ask. I will just have to take what I can get, and use you to hurt the heroes of Paris!” He yelled as he plunged the sword through Master Fu’s chest.


	14. Order of the Guardians

Adrien moved to attack Hawkmoth the moment his weapon impaled the Guardian, but Alya held him back.

“He’s here for your miraculous, and you don’t have the power to stop him from taking it right now. We can’t risk it Adrien.”

He didn’t like it, but she was right.

Looking back through the hole in the scene, he say Hawkmoth looming over Master Fu, who had fallen to the ground, but was still breathing.

“Ah yes, I’ve learned some new tricks on how to wield a miraculous from my time with the book, it had helped me immensely. I will only ask once more, where are the-“

Hawkmoth’s miraculous beeped. 

He would either have to flee or loose his transformation, and unknowingly reveal his identity to the two hidden teenagers.

“I suppose we will have to cut our conversation short Guardian. I’m sorry to leave you to die alone” 

Hawkmoth knelt down, leaning on his cane as he whispered into Master Fu’s ear “but you can die knowing that you having failed once again to protect the miraculouses, just like the rest of the Order.”

He stood up, pressing on his cane “your death brings my victory old man, for Chat Noir and Ladybug will have no one to guide them. Thank you for your sacrifice”

He hit his cane to the ground and all the akumas that had been blocking the doorway flew to surround him. When they dispersed, Hawkmoth was gone and the akumas spun out the door, trailing into the sky before disappearing behind the clouds. 

Adrien rushed to Master Fu’s side as soon as they were sure Hawkmoth was gone. 

“Thank you for staying hidden heroes, at least I got to protect the miraculouses one last time.”

Master Fu looked over towards Alya, who was applying pressure to the wound 

“I’m sorry we have to meet under such horrible circumstances. I was hoping they would pick you.”

Alya started

“You know me?”

“I’ve kept my eye out for possible holders in case other miraculouses needed to be activated, and you seemed like a great fit for the fox-“

Master Fu coughed and blood splattered his pale face. 

Alya winched and took a deep breath. She wasn’t an expect, but on all the medical shows she watches, coughing up blood usually means internal bleeding. 

“I don’t have long” Master Fu spoke, taking a ragged breath once his airways cleared enough to speak “Now listen to me heroes. While I am the last of the Order of the Guardians, I don’t have to be the last Guardian. Take the box, protect the miraculouses, your kwamis will help you learn how to care for them. I know you two, and Marinette, will be able to protect them, and any dangers that arise. I know you will defeat Hawkmoth.”

Adrien shook his head

“Master Fu, there’s still time, we can get you to the hospital and-“

The Guardian placed a hand on top of Adrien’s 

“I have lived a long life, perhaps too long, but it was my duty to protect the miraculouses. Now that I know I will be leaving them in capable hands, perhaps I will be able to rest.” 

He reached down to his wrist, untying the bracelet that held the turtle miraculous and handed it to Adrien, closing his hand around it.

Adrien used his free hand to hold Master Fu’s 

“But how are we supposed to do any of this without your guidance. Master Fu-“

“The book.”

Alya looked to Adrien in confusion, but he seemed to understand what the Guardian was speaking about.

“If you can get the book, it can reveal everything that the Order knew about miraculouses, including maybe being able to explain what is happening to Marinette-“

He coughed again, falling into a coughing fit as his body seized. 

“Master!” Plagg and Trixx yelled

Adrien’s eyes burned and he saw a tear trail down Alya’s cheek as she tried to keep good enough pressure on Master Fu’s wound. 

The Guardian took a deep breath, eye distant 

“You must find Nooroo and the butterfly miraculous, its power was never meant to be used this way-“

He stopped mid-word, chest stilling as it released its last breath.

Plagg and Trixx embraced each other as Adrien and Alya stared in disbelief while the last bit of life left the Guardian. 

Alya moved first, standing up with her shaking blood covered hands held away from her. 

“Adrien, we need to go.”

Adrien only stared.

“Adrien we can’t wait around for someone to come into the shop. Or for Hawkmoth to return. We need to take the miraculouses away from here and keep them safe.”

Adrien’s throat bobbed, but he didn’t say anything. 

“Adrien are you listening to me? I know this is all messed but, but I can’t do this on my own. I need your help.”

Adrien’s eyes were red and watery as he blinked away tears as he let go of Master Fu’s hand, setting it on his still chest. 

He cleared his throat as he stood and simply nodded as he moved to the back room. 

The gramophone that held the miraculous box had fallen to the ground during Hawkmoth’s search and was on its side. 

Thankfully, it looked like Hawkmoth hadn’t realized what was inside. 

Plagg, who was in Adrien’s front pocket flew the few feet down, or more fell down, with his flight only softening his landing as he was still too exhausted to flit about as he normally did. 

“We should only take the box, we can’t risk Hawkmoth recognizing the music player. Plus it’s too big to lug across Paris.”

Trixx landed beside him and the kwamis pressed the two dragon’s eyes and the hatched opened to reveal a series of buttons.

Adrien and Alya watched as the kwamis pressed some buttons and the top popped off, revealing the miraculous box inside.

“It’s huge!” Alya said, partially with amazement and a little disappointment, “hare we supposed to carry the box unnoticed?”

Plagg touched the top of the box and it opened

“That part is up to Wayzz” he said as the little green kwami shot from the box.

“Where is Master Fu?” He demanded before looking past the teenagers into the main room. 

“No!” He yelled, lowering until he landed beside the other two kwamis “what happened?”

“Hawkmoth”.

Wayzz nodded solemnly “Master Fu sensed the attack moments before it happened, it’s why he sent me into the gramophone, to protect the box and hide it from Hawkmoth.”

“You can use your powers by yourself?” Adrien spoke up “without being transformed?”

Wayzz nodded

“All kwamis can, but not with the same strength as when wielded, which is why we need holders.”

Alya cleared her throat 

“I’m so sorry, but we really should be going. We can’t be vulnerable for another attack. Is there any way you could guard the box to make it less noticeable while we carry it?”

“I can’t make it invisible, but I can place a haze around the box to protect it” Wayzz announced, “People will see that it’s there, but they will dismiss it, they won’t be able to focus on it.

Adrien nodded 

“I think the first thing we should do is go back to Marinette’s. We can regroup there and figure out what to do.”

Alya agreed and Adrien lifted the box into his arms while the kwamis nibbled on some crackers Master Fu had left out. It wasn’t the type of food that would energize any of the kwamis the most, but in case of another attack, they would be able to fight.

It took a long time to get back to Marinette’s since they had to stick to as many empty roads as possible and try to stay hidden from sight.

They went through the front when they finally got to the bakery, saying a quick hello to Marinette’s dad, mumbled something about a group project and headed towards the stairs when Tom stopped them. 

“I’m sorry kids, but I don’t think Marinette is up to doing a project right now.” 

Adrien and Alya exchanged looks.

“Mr. Dupain, can I ask what’s wrong?” Adrien asked, with the politeness that his mother taught him in full swing. 

“We didn’t even know she was home, until half an hour ago when this screaming came from upstairs. When we rushed upstairs, Marinette was seizing.”

Tom stopped speaking to wipe his eyes, and Alya placed a hand on her shoulder comfortingly as he continued.

“Marinette used to have seizures quite often until early last year.” 

Adrien’s eyes widened, he hadn’t know that. He looked over to Alya, who as one of Marinette’s oldest friends must have known about her epilepsy. She looked upset, but not surprised as Tom continued for Adrien’s sake.

“She had medication that helped, but when she went moths without having a seizure, the doctors gave the okay for her to stop taking them.”

“How is Marinette now?” Alya asked, seeming to know exactly what to say.

Tom sighed 

“You know how my daughter is after she has had a seizure, she’s quiet, closed in on herself. Sabine is up there with her now.”

Adrien bit his lip, not knowing how to deal with the situation at all, thankfully Alya did. 

“May we see her? Maybe seeing some friends will help.”

Tom nodded 

“Sabine and I have been taking turns being up there with her, wish we could both be with her but we have a huge order to fill for a wedding today and we’ve been working at half speed with having only one of us working at a time. Go on up you two, just be patient and comforting, it takes a while for Marinette to calm down.”

Climbing up into Marinette’s room, it was dark except for the light coming in from the window where Marinette and her mother sat, head turned to the window. 

“Marinette?” Alya asked hesitantly “How are you feeling?”

She didn’t look away from the window. 

Adrien moved to rush to her side, but Alya uses her arm to hold him back, motioning for him to take it slow.

“Marinette? Is it okay if we come over there? It’s just me and Adrien.” 

Not hearing an objection, Alya took a few steps forward, Adrien doing the same but staying behind her.

Sabine stood 

“I’ll give you guys some space.” She said softly, descending downstairs towards the bakery. 

Now closer, Adrien could make out more of Marinette, noticing that her legs were pulled against her chest and her hair was out off their normal pigtails. 

“Marinette?” Alya asked again softly, now close enough to put a hand lightly on Marinette’s shoulder, causing her to whip her head around to face them, her eyes wide and filled with tears.

She scanned Alya first, who smiled back weakly, before she turned to Adrien

“Adrien?” She asked in barely a whisper “What are you doing here?”

“I, uh-“

Marinette’s eyes drooped for a moment and she jerked

“No no, I don’t want to, just make them stop-“ she rambled, cradling her legs closer to her chest.

Alya sat down on the window seat beside her 

“Hey hey, you’re alright, you’ve just had a seizure, you need to take it easy”

Marinette’s eyes closed for a moment too long again and she jumped up shaking her hands 

“No, I need to stay awake. Tikki? Where’s Tiki?”

The small red kwami shot through the hatch into Marinette’s room, cheese and berries in hand

“Sorry! When I heard you guys downstairs I went to grab some snacks, guessing you would be hungry from fighting the akuma.”

Trixx and Plagg nodded and graciously accepted the food Tikki handed them before she rushed over to Marinette and landed in her open hands.

“It’s alright Marinette. You’re okay, you’re awake” She repeated the last part a couple times in a way that seemed like she had been doing that since Marinette had woken up.

Marinette nodded, taking a calming breath and quietly repeated to herself “I’m awake” over and over again with Tikki nodding sweetly each time.

Eventually she calmed down and looked up, eyes locking on Adrien. 

Her eyes squinted slightly 

“You don’t seem surprised that I’m talking to a little red bug” she said, voice regaining some of it’s normal tone.

Her eyes shot to Alya 

“Did you tell him?! I thought I could trust you! This is why I didn’t tell-“

Her eyes glanced down to the two kwamis gobbling down their snacks and realization hit her. 

“Oh my god. Chat?”

—————————————————————————

They let Marinette freak out for several minutes, pacing back and forth and pulling at her hair. She would have continued to do so if it wasn’t for her eyes drooping again, making her loose her balance and collapse to the ground. 

Adrien moved to help her but Alya beat him to it, helping her sit up. 

“Are you alright?” 

Marinette shook her head, sobs wrecking her body 

“I can’t Alya, I can’t have another dream. Please don’t let me fall asleep.” 

Adrien’s heart broke at the fear in her expression, and Alya pulled her into a hug.

“Hey, you’re okay, just try to stay awake. What can we do to help?”

The girls pulled apart but kept their hands together. 

“Distract me, it might keep me from dozing off.” She looked over at Plagg who swallowed his last piece of cheese whole “Tell me about the akuma! Alya it was your first transformation! How did it feel? How did it go?” 

Adrien sat down beside the two girls

“Marinette, there’s something we need to tell you…”

Marinette stared at Adrien, tears in her eyes as they finished explaining what had befallen Master Fu. 

Tikki, who was being embraced by the other two kwamis, pulled away and flew to Marinette, who cuddled the kwami to her. 

“So what do we do now?” She asked finally “we can’t let let Hawkmoth win.”

Alya squeezed her hand 

“We won’t.” She said, glancing up at Adrien, “especially since we’ve kept this away from him” she added, nodding towards Adrien who brought out the miraculous box from where he had set it down.

Marinette’s eyes widened before she shook her head 

“But how are we supposed to know what to do with the miraculouses or take care of them without the Guardian to show us how?”

Trixx nudged Plagg and the little kwami let out a noise of realization and zoomed over to the box, speaking as he started the process of opening it 

“We may not have Master Fu anymore, but Wayzz knows almost everything he did, he’ll know what to do.”

Wayzz flew out of the box as soon as it opened, flying around to get his bearings before fixing on Marinette

“I’m glad to see you’re okay Marinette.” 

She nods 

“You too Wayzz.” She said with a weak smile “is it true you can teach us how to protect the miraculouses?” 

“I can teach you as much as I can, but I am not a Guardian.”

Alya looked to Adrien 

“Remember what Master Fu said”

Marinette raised her eyebrows as Adrien nodded 

“He said he didn’t have to be the last Guardian”

“But the Order of the Guardians ended with him right?”

“Maybe it’s time to find someone new” Wayzz interrupted “while Master Fu hadn’t transformed in years, he was the turtle miraculous holder and used its power to protect the miraculouses. While I have some powers by myself, we need to find someone new to wield the turtle miraculous.”

Alya’s eyes widened, followed by an earsplitting grin

“I know just the person.”

Adrien frowned, shrugging his shoulders in a. Confused gesture 

“And are you going to tell us-wait. No. No way. Marinette, please tell Alya that there is no way we are going to give the miraculous to-“ 

He looked over to Marinette for backup and saw her collapse against Alya

“Nino.”


	15. The Red Hand

“You best be careful walking all alone at night miss. You never know what kind of people are lurking about in the shadows.”

The woman grinned, the man had no idea how right he was. 

The man moved closer to her, hands moving to wrap around he waist. She whirled to face him, revealing the cutlass in her hand as she wielded it in his direction. 

“Remove your hands.”

“What? You-“

“I’m going to have to ask you to surrender your affects sir.” She said innocently 

The man pointed at her as if she was some sort of apparition 

“I know who you are, you’re the Red Hand! The dreaded pirate!”

The woman dropped her cloak, revealing her ensemble as she knelt down in a dramatic bow and tipped her hat

“At your service.”

The man looked her up and down, his expression filled with judgement 

“I never would have thought you were a woman” he scoffed, taking a step forward, leading with his lips to show off his masculinity “why don’t you put that little knife down so I can teach you some manners on how a woman should treat a man.”

A figure dropped down onto the street from the roof of a nearby shop, landing behind the man, who whipped around to face the hooded figure.

“I knew it. There’s no way a woman could be the Red Hand. You need a strong man to back you up, I bet he’s the real pirate” he said, gesturing to the hooded figure. 

“I beg your pardon?” Said the figure, removing their hood “I take insult in being mistaken for a man.” 

Another figure moved out of the shadows of a nearby building and into the light 

“This bad excuse for a male bothering you Captain?”

“A woman can’t be a captain” he said with a laugh, twisting around to the Red Hand and was met with a sword against his throat. 

She sighed “I wish people would stop telling me that” she said with a hiss “my reputation speaks for itself. It’s not my fault people assume only a man could accomplish such tasks.”

The man attempted to move away and the the cutlass pushed closer, cutting in just enough to draw blood, causing the man to shout in pain.

“This is outrageous, the Red Hand can’t be a woman! Not to mention a crew made entirely of women. I’ve never heard of such a thing!”

“I guess that means we set the precedent. Ey Captain?” 

The man spat on the ground near her feet, making the cutlass cut in deeper.

“I’ll tell everyone. No one will fear the Red Hand once they know they’re a woman.”

The two crew-women laughed and the Red Hand stepped even closer 

“You know, that’s what all the men before you have said, and as you have proven, word still hasn’t gotten out” she finished as she pushed the man away, and his hand moved to clutch his neck.

“Now dear, we really are going to need you to turn out your pockets” she demanded, sword at the ready. 

“Why me, how do you know I have anything of value?”

“A little birdie told us” the Red Hand said and lunged with her cutlass and the man screamed. 

Sheathing her sword, the captain sighed 

“Red Hand? How do they come up with these names?” 

“It’s a mystery to me” her orange clad companion said with a laugh before nodding towards the screaming man clutching his wrist on the ground behind them.

“Why are you doing this?!” The man yelled between clenched teeth as he writhed in pain.

“Evangeline told us about you. She sends her regards” the Red Hand said coldly as she tossed the right hand she had removed behind her 

“Are we ready?” She asked.

Her companions nodded, one patting the pouch now filled with the man’s belongings as they raised the hoods of their cloaks and disappeared into the night.

When they returned to the ship, a girl was waiting for them 

“Did you-“

“He won’t bother you again” the Red Hand promised as she and her crew removed their cloaks. 

“Shall we make ready to weigh anchor by dawn Captain?”

The Red Hand nodded

“We don’t want to stay here any longer than we have to” she said before turning to the girl “You’d better head back home.”

The girl’s eyes widened and she took a step farther onto the ship and away from the rails of the ship

“Please don’t make me go back. If I stay I’ll be promised off to another horrid man in no time. Nobody teaches women how to defend themselves, but you seem to know how. Please. Teach me” she said, taking a step closer to the Red Hand “Take me with you.” She pleaded. 

The Captain’s eyebrows raised and she looked over the girl

“You sure you know what you’re asking? Running with us is a dangerous lifestyle, you would be much safer staying here.”

The girl shook her head

“Not if staying here means I’ll become just another submissive wife who takes the abuse of men silently. I’m tired of having my life decided for me. I’m willing to take the risks if it means I get to be free.”

The Red Hand turned to the rest of her crew.

“Well, it’s not my decision. What do we think?”

One of the crew did a quick walk around the girl 

“She’s thin, but we can easily fix that with some training. I say yes.”

The girl smiled and muttered a thank you before turning to the other crew member who had moved up close to the girl as well. 

“You do realize that we are pirates. What we do isn’ exactly legal, it could get you hanged.”

The girl nodded 

“Worth the risk.”

“You’ll have to be trained extensively on how to handle a sword. It’s going to be hard work.”

“I’m a fast learner” the girl said with a grin before meeting the crew member’s expression, at which it quickly wiped away. 

“You say that now, but what about during your first fight? When you shed your first blood.”

The girl stood her ground against the woman’s intimidating stare, meeting her gaze head on. 

“Men have taken from me my entire life, it’s about time I take some back in return.”

The woman took a step back, eyes still on the girl as a smile formed 

“Then I say yes. The girl’s got fire, we can use that. Plus, it’s hard running a ship with a three person crew. Another pair of hands will be useful” she turned to the Red Hand “up to you Captain, you have the final call.”

All eyes turned to the Red Hand who was leaning against the rail of the ship. 

“Do you know why they call me the Red Hand?”

The girl nodded.

“You never kill your victims, you leave them alive but take one of their hands to claim them as yours.”

“Victims huh” one of the crew scoffed, “I guess that’s how it would be reported when it’s told my a group of men.”

The girl frowned,

“What do you mean?”

The Red Hand took a step forward, fiddling with a dagger in her hand,

“When you met us today and told us what your fiancé had done to you, we promised to make him pay.”

She sheathed the dagger back into the strap inside her boot.

“It wasn’t the first time we’ve done so. Traveling across the seas as we have, you hear hundreds of stories about how women have been mistreated by men, including the stories of me and my crew.”

The girl gasped,

“You?”

The Captain nodded 

“We weren’t always pirates little one, and we all have stories for how we came to be ones. I was born from an affair, and when my brother died, my mother attempted to hide the shame of it by dressing me as a boy to fool everyone into thinking I was my brother. Raised that way for years, I joined the military as a man, and I fell in love and married a soldier.” 

She looked off towards the horizon with tears in her eyes “Obviously, it didn’t last long. He died son after and I once again took the disguise of a man and took work on a ship until it was taken over by pirates. They killed each of the men on board one by one, and when it came to me they discovered who I was under my clothing and spared me, wanting a woman to warm their beds aboard their ship. Which is when I met my first mate.” She said with a small grin, nodding towards one of the crew who continued the story. 

“I was married to one of the pirate’s aboard-“

“And more crazy than all the men combined” the second crew woman interrupted with a laugh, resulting in shove from the other.

“Anyways, Captain and I got to know each other, and we made a plan to mutiny and take over the ship. My husband was not a kind man, and I wanted free of the lot of them. So, one night we drugged their rum and once they were fast asleep we threw them all into a row boat and left them adrift as we took charge of the ship you are now standing on.”

The girl looked down at her feet, imagining how the two women must have cheered as the ship sailed away from their abusers.

She turned to the second crew woman, who sighed before giving her own backstory 

“I married a sailor when I was very young and foolish, and when he was to sail away on a ship I dressed as a man and followed him. Weeks into the journey I was discovered by one of the officers aboard the ship, who blackmailed my husband into doing the worst jobs to keep my identity a secret as well as to keep him from doing what he wanted with me. When we made port, the officer killed my husband and attempted to have his…way with me. I tried to defend myself, but I was pregnant and he was too strong. He would have succeeded if not for two women coming to my aid” she said, winking at the two other women pirates “not long after I joined the crew and here we are.”

A tear trailed down the girl’s cheek, who had been silent throughout the women’s tales 

“I’m so sorry for what you all endured” she said finally, voice weak. 

The Captain shook her head. 

“We are not the only ones who have received such vile treatment. The difference between others who have heard women’s pleas and us is that me and my crew chose to do something about it. We track down those who have hurt others and hurt them.”

The girl’s eyes widened

“So they will never do anything like that again.” One of the crew finished “Only way women can be heard is to fight fire with fire.”

The Red Hand nodded,

“But we don’t kill. It would make us no better than them, and we need to be better than them. Or else they win. If you chose to join us, you must understand two things. One, we do not kill unless absolutely necessary. Two, we never ignore a call for hep by those oppressed by men, no matter the danger that may include. Do you swear to follow these rules?”

The girl nodded, repeating the rules and promising to obey them.

The Captain grinned,

“Then welcome aboard.”

With tears in her eyes, the girl thanked her as the two crew women cheered 

“I promise I won’t let you down Red Hand.”

The Captain laughed,

“If you are going to be a part of my crew, you should probably know my name. Captain Mary Read at your service” she said with a flourish, bowing dramatically “and this is my crew, the adventurous Anne Dieu-Le-Veut and courageous Charlotte de Berry.” 

Anne smirked 

“So formal, Anne will do, she’s Charlie” she said, jerking a thumb to the other crew woman.

“Charlie?” The girl asked.

“After the child I lost, it reminds me what I am fighting for.” She said, voice somber before she smiled weakly and gestured to the girl “and you? What should we call you? You can choose a new name for your new life if you want.”

The girl thought for a moment. 

“Evangeline. I’m Evangeline. I want men to know my real name when I make them pay for the horrors they have made others endure.”

Mary grinned.

“Make ready then. We sail at dawn.”

————————————————————————————

Marinette eyes fluttered as they adjusted to the light blaring down at her. 

She could hear voices.

“This is crazy man”

“I know it’s a lot to take in-“

“Well yeah!”

Marinette moved her head towards the voices, but her vision was still blurred and she could only make out the outlines of the figures in front of her.

“Marinette!” Came one of the voices and the three figures crowded around her.

“She’s waking up!” 

“Can you hear us?”

“Is she okay?”

“Of course she’s not okay Nino!”

“Hey, don’t yell at me. I’m new to this!”

“Guys please!”

Marinette looked towards the owner of the last voice.

“Marinette, it’s me, Alya. You okay?”

She could make out her friend’s glasses now.

“I still can’t believe that she’s Ladybug.”

“Not now Nino.”

“And you’re Chat Noir.”

“Nino.”

“And my girlfriend’s Rena Rouge.”

“Nino shut up.”

“Actually, this all makes a lot of sense al the sudden.”

“Nino. Not. Now.”

Marinette’s vision narrowed and the figures looming over her returned to blurs.

“Gah, I can’t believe I didn’t put this all together before now!”

Their voices sounded miles away.

“Marinette?”

Her eyes dropped.

“No no no. Marinette please stay with me!”

“Adrien, I-“

Her eyes closed and she was gone. 

————————————————————————————

They had spotted the ship in the distance an hour or so ago. 

Right on schedule. 

It wasn’t long the ship was pulling up alongside theirs, lured in by their white flag. 

“Ladies!” Came the voice of a sailor “what has happened here?” He shouted.

Evangeline exchanged a small grin with Anne before turning teary eyed towards the men 

“Please, help us! Our ship was attacked, and they killed the captain, and the crew!“

Anne nodded, grasping her hand comfortingly,

“We only survived because we hid below decks.”

Now closer, the girls could make out the vulgar expressions the sailors exchanged as they dropped anchor and placed a plank between the ships.

“Why don’t you all climb aboard and we’ll keep you safe” one said suggestively.

Evangeline plastered as innocent an expression as she could muster

“Please, our other two sisters are sick, it may not be wise to move them until they recover.”

The men exchanged glances.

“We have plenty of food and drink aboard” Anne added, “perhaps we could make a exchange? A nice meal for your ship to wait till morning?”

The men grumbled to each other for a moment, some gesturing with their hands what they would like to do to the girls before one of the crew turned back to the women. 

“We’ll have to check with the captain, but I can’t see how he could refuse an evening spent feasting and being entertained by such fine ladies as yourselves.”

Not long after, the deck of the women’s ship was covered with the dirty crew as they waited to eat. 

Anne and Evangeline had succeeded thus far at keeping the men from exploring. Knowing that even men with such little intelligence as these would be able to put two and two together on what sort of ship this was if they looked too closely.

Thankfully, the two had easily prepared a meal for the crew that kept them busy for an hour or so. Now, the women were passing around goblets of wine as refreshment that they ended up up refilling several times each. 

Eventually, they all moved to the men’s deck, where several drunk men had started to sing and play their instruments, each sailor begging the women to dance with them. 

Anne and Evangeline exchanged glances. They still had some time to kill so they complied, each grabbing a partner to dance with until the sailor’s hands wandered too far, at which they would switch. 

After the third song or so was when the men began to slow, stumbling across the deck before collapsing to the ground asleep.

“Finally!” Anne exclaimed quietly to Evangeline with a huff “I was starting to think we might not have dosed the wine enough to put them out.”

Evangeline hushed her, gesturing to the few men still awake. 

Anne sighed and moved over to them, dragging a chair behind her with which she hit them over the head, knocking them out cold before turning back towards Evangeline. 

She scoffed at her expression,

“What? I put up with this whole evening didn’t I? I deserved a little fun” she said, rubbing her arms and brushing at her dress as if to cleanse herself of any lingering touches of the sailors left on her

“Ugh, remind me why we decided to take on an entire crew?”

“We never refuse to help a woman in need remember?”

Anne sighed, giving in.

“Yes, I know.” She drawled “but next time, Charlie and the Captain have to play damsels in distress.”

Evangeline smirked before turning her attention towards the Captain’s quarters,

“Speaking of which, we should give them the signal” she said as the two moved towards the hall before freezing at the sound of voices.

“The captain won’t like that we’re over here, he said hands off the women till he gets his pick.” 

“But these two are sick aren’t they? He won’t want ‘em will he? So why shouldn’t we have a little fun?”

“But what if they’s contagious? I love myself a warm woman you know me, but I don’t want to be infected with nothing- Don’t go in there!”

Evangeline and Anne could hear a door open

“What the bloody hell? Argh!-“

The women raced around the corner and saw the two owners of the voices knocked out cold on the ground with Mary standing over them.

Clarlie poked her head past the door and spotted them, 

“I thought you were going to drug the wine!”

“We did!” Anne said defensively “the rest are out cold. I guess these two didn’t have enough to drink.”

Mary stepped over the men’s bodies and straightened her hat,

“No matter, let’s get to work.”

Quickly, the women moved across the plank to the men’s ship, quietly maneuvering past the men’s sleeping bodies as they made their way below decks. 

After a minute, they came upon the brig and found what they had come for. 

Mary stepped up to the cell and unsheathed her dagger, using it to gesture as she addressed the prisoners inside.

“Now, which one of you in Nickolas?”

————————————————————————————

“Marinette please wake up!” Begged a voice.

“It’s no use Adrien.”

“We can’t just leave her here!”

“Of course not” came a new voice. 

She felt a hand brush hair away from her face and her eyes shot open.

“Guys! She’s awake!”

“Thank goodness. Marinette, we are in so much trouble”

She registered the sound of a smack.

“Ow!”

“Don’t overwhelm her Nino!”

“Sorry! But we’ve got a bit of a problem right now if you haven’t noticed! We could really use her help.”

Hands cupped her face and Adrien came into view.

“Marinette? Can you hear me?”

She couldn’t speak, it was like she had forgotten how to. 

Her fear must have shown in her eyes and Adrien caressed her cheek with his thumb.

“It’s okay, don’t push yourself. Just stay awake okay? Just stay with me. Please Marinette.”

She smiled weakly, and lifted her hand up to his cheek. 

Adrien’s eyes gleamed as he leaned in.

An explosion sounded and Adrien jerked away, eyes shifting away from hers as he stood up straight. 

“All be right back okay? Alya!” Adrien yelled as he moved out of her view and Alya took his place.

“Hey bestie, not gonna lie, you’ve missed a lot.”

Another explosion.

“Just ignore that” Alya said unconvincingly, worry etched across her features.

Marinette’s eyes were heavy.

“No no no, Marinette!” 

She could feel her body being shaken, but it was like her eyes had been glued shut. 

“Not now, Marinette please!” Her friend begged.

“Alya?”

“Nino she won’t open her eyes.”

A pause.

“Then we go with my plan.”

“Are you sure it’s the right thing?”

“Where’s the box?”

“Inside there. But Nino, who will we-“

————————————————————————————

The blonde prisoner spoke first.

“Who wants to know?”

Charlie knelt close to the bars, 

“Don’t be smart, we’re here to rescue Nickolas.”

The blonde raised his eyebrows,

“Just him? So I’ll just stay put then shall I?”

Charlie laughed and turned her attention to the quiet boy.

“Aaaaand that answers that question, I suppose that makes you Nickolas then. Hello there.”

The boy’s eyes shifted around, taking in each of the women.

“I’m not going anywhere. I don’t know any of you.”

“You’d rather we leave you in here then?” Anne said jokingly, receiving a disapproving look from Mary as she sunk down till she was at the boy’s level, meeting his gaze.

“Your sister sent us, we’re going to get you back to her” she said calmly. 

The boy’s eyes lit up and it appeared that was all the convincing he needed. 

Standing quickly, he moved away from the bars as Evangeline pulled out the keys she had snagged from the captain.

“Wait, what about my friend?” The boy said, gesturing to the blonde boy who had been observing all of this with his jaw dropped in surprise. 

Mary, still kneeling, turned towards him

“What did you do to get put in there?”

“Why should I tell you?” The boy countered defensively.

“Better watch your tone boy” Anne threatened, pulling out her own knife and directing it at him “nobody speaks to the Captain that way.”

He leaned towards her, 

“Captain? A woman?” 

Anne lunged, and the blonde only avoided being stabbed in the eye because Mary held her back.

“Easy now Anne.” She commanded before turning to face the boy “look, if you don’t want us to free you, we’ll just get Nickolas and be on our way-“

“I snuck on board and got caught.”

“Of course, only a boy would be stupid enough to stow away on a ship like this.” Charlie chuckled, resulting in a glare from the boy.

“The men took my sister the last time they had been at the Port where I lived a month earlier. When they returned, I stowed away, hoping to get her back, only to be captured and discover that she had been thrown overboard when they had each had a turn with her and lost her appeal.”

Everyone fell silent at that, and after a moment, Mary was the one to break the silence.

“I’m sorry about your sister. We can’t bring her back, but we can let you out and you can avenge her memory” she paused “if that’s what you want.”

The blonde’s eyes flashed and he stood slowly, backing into the cell until he was beside Nickolas.

“Alright then, “ Mary said as she gestured for Evangeline to unlock the cell. 

Once freed, the two boys followed the women back above deck and Nickolas gasped at the sight of the fallen crew.

“Are they all dead?”

Anne shook her head,

“Just asleep, and they’ll stay that way for a couple more hours hopefully” she added, which made the boy grin.

Mary, who had taken the lead whirled around

“Which of the men were the ones who took you?” She asked, any humor in her expression evaporating. 

Nickolas walked around, looking at the sleeping body’s faces and eventually paused and pointed at a pair of sailors.

“There are the ones that grabbed me” he said coldly.

Mary nodded to Evangeline and Charlie, and the two girls gagged the men as a safety precaution in case they woke up as Mary unsheathed her cutlass and swiftly removed a hand from each of them. 

The jolt of pain woke the men from their drugged sleep and each moved to yell but their screams were muffled and Charlie quickly rendered each unconscious again. 

“Oh my- you’re the Red Hand!” 

Mary wiped the blood off her cutlass on on elf the men’s shirts silently before raising her gaze to the blonde’s and nodded.

“I never thought-“

“Yes, I know. I get that a lot. Now, we should really move quickly. I don’t want anyone else waking up before we’ve concluded our business here” she said, giving a silent command to her crew and each of the women dispersed to do their tasks. 

Mary picked up a sword from one of the men and held it out to the blonde.

“Feel free to do with them as you wish. I only ask that you wait until we are on our way.”

The boy accepted the sword and nodded,

“Thank you…”

“Andrew. My name’s Andrew. Suppose since you saved me I owe you at least that. Thank you Red Hand.”

“Mary Read.” She said with a smile, tipping her captain’s hat slightly before turning away her attention “We almost done here?” She called out.

Anne was finishing tying up the last of the crew around the mast of the ship and Evangeline and Charlie appeared out from the captain’s quarters, sacks clinking and no doubt filled with treasures.

“Aye Captain.”

“Good” Mary said “back to the ship and-“

“Wait!” Nickolas shouted before disappearing below decks for a moment before returning with a black box with red designs in his arms.

“What’s that?” Anne asked, moving closer for a better look. 

“This is why they took me” Nickolas responded. 

“Why? What’s so special about an old box?” Anne pushed, reaching for the lid but Nickolas moved away.

“It’s not the box, but what’s inside.”

Anne looked ready with a dozen more questions but Mary held up a hand.

“Later Anne, it’s almost dawn. Make ready the ship, weigh anchor as soon as we are all on board. I don’t want to risk how much longer the men will remain asleep.”

Her crew nodded and they and Nickolas moved across the plank over to their ship before moving about the deck, untying ropes and hoisting the sails. 

Mary turned to Andrew,

“This is goodbye I suppose, and good luck” she stated as she climbed up onto the plank and moved to walk across.

“Wait. Let me come with you.” The blonde said hastily. 

Mary frowned, stepping back towards him.

“But what about avenging your sister?”

Andrew took a step back and gestured to the captain,

“Will you-“

Mary swiftly removed the man’s hand.

“That’s good enough for me. I could never kill anyone, it’s just not in me I suppose.”

Mary looked down at her feet. 

“But what about the rest of the men?”

Andrew shook his head

“I have to be better than them. Show the mercy they did not to my sister.”

Mary nodded, climbing back onto the plank and over to her ship before turning back to the boy who still stood on the opposite deck.

“Well? You coming?”

The boy let out a sigh of relief and nearly fell off the plank in his hastiness, and would have if Mary hadn’t grabbed his hand to steady him.

The boy looked down at their hands, keeping them that way for a moment too long before letting go.

Mary grinned wickedly,

“Welcome aboard.”

————————————————————————————

When Marinette opened her eyes, everything was dark and she panicked, thinking she was falling asleep again before she spotted a window and realized it was night. 

She must have been out of it for hours.

“Tikki?”

No response.

“Tikki!” She called a bit louder and a door opened harshly, flooding the room with light. 

“Oh my god. You’re awake!”

Marinette was still too out of it to move towards the voice, but she recognized it.

“Alya?”

Her friend raced to her side.

“Yeah, it’s me. Are you alright?”

Marinette nodded.

“I think so” she said, struggling to sit up and Alya quickly moved to help her. 

Feeling more awake, Marinette took in her surroundings, but didn’t recognize anything.

“Where are we?”

“It’s a long story…”

Another figure rushed into the room, dressed in all black.

“Chat?”

The boy smiled and quickly released his transformation, revealing the blonde boy underneath. 

Adrien grabbed her hand.

“How are you doing?” He asked, placing a hand on her cheek.

Marinette leaned into his touch.

“I’m okay I think. I feel awake at least. Where are we?”

Adrien smile faltered for a moment and he looked over at Alya for assistance but was met with a shrug.

“Uh, well, you see…”

“Adrien you here?” Came a shout from outside the room before two more figures came into the room, both transformed.

Marinette was confused.

“You’re awake!” Shouted one of the figures in a green suit, “about time!” he said jokingly as the transformation released to reveal…

Nino?

Marinette’s gaze shifted to the other figure in a black and yellow ensemble who was shaking her head.

“I still can’t believe YOU’RE Ladybug” she said, voice full of judgement as they too related their transformation.

Chloe?

What was happening?

Marinette turned to Adrien, who gave her a sympathetic look.

“We have a lot to talk about.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pirate names and backstory for Mary Read and Anne Dieu-Le-Veut edited for story but based on real female pirates.  
> Charlotte de Berry based on fictional female pirate.


	16. The Plan

Marinette looked around the group, taking note of the bracelet on Nino’s wrist and the comb in Chloe’s hair. 

“You all have been busy” she noted absentmindedly, not directed at anyone in particular. 

Adrien sighed, moving to sit beside her, putting a hand comfortingly on her back.

“Take it slow, don’t rush. We’ve got all the time in the world to catch you up with what happened while you slept.”

“Actually…”

“Shut up Nino.” Alya hissed.

“Babe, I just think that-“

Alya dragged her boyfriend out of the room, closing the door behind them. Not that it did much except slightly muffle the shouting that broke out on the other side of the wall. 

Marinette stared down the two remaining holders in the room. 

“Okay. Someone better start taking” she threatened.

Chloe and Adrien exchanged glances before the boy placed a hand on top of Marinette’s.

“Marinette, you’ve-“

The door open a few inches and a handful of kwamis came surging into the room followed by Nino and Alya.

“Marinette!” Shouted Tikki as she crashed landed into her holder’s arms out of excitement. “I’ve missed you! I was so worried!” 

The small kwami squealed, cuddling even closer into Marinette who laughed.

“It’s only been a few hour Tikki, I’m okay, don’t worry!”

Tikki glanced up at Adrien and Marinette hopped up the bed before Adrien could stop her and turned to face the group.

“Why do I feel like everyone everyone is keeping something from me. Someone better start talking. Now.” 

Her demanding voice would have been a lot more effective if she hadn’t been hit with a dizzy spell and stumbled slightly. 

Alya raced to her side to keep her upright but Marinette backed out of her grasp.

“No. I’m fine. Tell me what happened.”

“Marinette, while you were unconscious…”

Marinette nodded, urging her to continue.

“You already know we gave two miraculouses to Chloe and Nino, but what you don’t know is that-“

Alya looked over to the others for help.

“What? What is everyone so scared to tell me?”

Everyone suddenly took an immense interest in the floor.

Chloe groaned. 

“You are all pathetic. What they won’t tell you is that you were asleep for over a week.”

“I what?!”

The others did the best they could to catch Marinette up with what had happened while she slept. 

The first day had been quiet, no akumas to deal with. So, Adrien and Alya spent it bringing Nino into the folds, which Tok many hours due to his inability to be chill about any of it. At which point, Nino let out an offended “hey.”

The second day she was asleep, they explained that she had woken up for a few minutes.

Marinette nodded, somewhat able to recall the memory. 

After that, she stayed unconscious for two more days. During which Hawkmoth seemed to realize she was out of the picture at least temporarily due to no sightings of Ladybug having surfaced for day. 

He took full use of her absence by activating three akumas at once. 

Adrien, Nino and Alya had been able to hold them off and free the akumas, but without Ladybug, they were unable to de-evilize them and the victims would be re-akumatized within a few hours.

This confirmed Hawkmoth’s suspicion that something had happened to Ladybug, and he used the worry and despair this provoked in the citizens of Paris to akumatize people by the dozen.

Marinette’s friends had been overwhelmed. Nino proposed that they activate another miraculous, which was when Marinette woke up temporarily for the second time. 

Alya and Adrien wanted to wait for Marinette, so she could help them chose the new holder, but when she was rendered unconscious again so quickly, they couldn’t wait any longer.

Which is when Chloe came into the picture.

Everyone had been surprised that Chloe wasn’t one of the first people to be akumatized, but in a strange turn of events, Chloe was one of the people who hadn’t lost hope that Ladybug would come back.

On the fifth day Marinette was asleep, Chloe had tracked down Alya, thinking that if anyone could track down Ladybug, it would be the runner of the Ladyblog. She apparently made a good enough argument that the holders and kwamis agreed to give the bee miraculous to her. 

Her power to immobilize and Nino’s to protect helped a lot, easing the heroes ability to break the akumatized objects and free the victims, at least for a while. 

Marinette broke her silence at this, thanking the two newest heroes for their help defending the city, and failed to notice the slight blush that flushed Chloe’s cheeks before she made some half comment about needing something to drink and quickly leaving the room. 

Marinette’s eyes followed her out the door and she finally realized where they were.

“Wait, are we at Chloe’s?”

Alya nodded “with her dad being the mayor, he was paranoid enough about akumas to place dozens of security measures around the entire building in case it came under attack. It’s one of the safest places we could be right now. Heaven knows our houses aren’t.”

Marinette froze.

Their houses. Their families.

“My parents?”

The smiles dropped from all of their faces.

“I’m sorry Marinette” Alya said solemnly, “they were both akumatized a couple das ago.”

Marinette’s eyes widened and she raced to the window.

“I have to get to them, I can de-evilize them and-“

Adrien walked up beside her “it’s too dangerous. Enough people have been akumatized that Hawkmoth’s list of what our identities could be has narrowed significantly. We were able to trap your parents in the bakery. They won’t be able to get out until we come back for them. I promise.”

Marinette took a deep breath and nodded before turning back to the rest of the group.

“What about your families? Are they all…”

Nino shook his head “Some, but not all. Three days ago, the mayor proclaimed a city wide evacuation. Most of my family got out” he paused, looking down at his feet “everyone except Chris. He was akumatized.”

Aya intertwined his hand with hers and stepped closer to him, leaning into him. 

“Alya?” Marinette asked quietly. 

“My family’s okay Marinette. I used Rena Rouge’s power of illusion to get them out before the evacuation even started. But once they were a ways away, my illusion faded and the version of me I had made disappeared. They think I’ve been akumatized.”

“I’m sorry Alya” Marinette said sympathetically, pulling her into a hug before turning to Adrien.

“Your dad?”

He shook his head.

“I don’t know, I haven’t encountered him akumatized, but my house is on lockdown. No way in or out.”

Marinette pressed a soft kiss to his shoulder, making him smile softly.

“We will make this right. I promise.”

She looked towards the door.

“What about Chloe?”

“The mayor has been akumatized. Thankfully, her mom was out of town, so she’s fine. That’s why we’re being so open about our…other identities.” Nino said “Nobody is around to overhear us.” 

He paused.

“Which is actually really sad when you think about it.”

Marinette looked back at the door.

“Chloe’s been gone for a while now. I’m going to go check on her.”

The others exchanged glances and Alya raised her eyebrows.

“You? You want to go check on Chloe?”

Nino shook his head. 

“Nope. My mind can’t process that. We must of heard wrong.”

Marinette rolled her eyes. 

“If you guys chose her as the holder of the bee miraculous, I trust your judgement that she will use it wisely. We need to put down any disputes we have and work together if we want to help all the akumatized citizens of this city” she said, feeling three pairs of eyes drilling holes into her back as she walked out of the bedroom.

She found Chloe in the kitchen, sitting on the ground with a large carton of ice-cream and a spoon.

“Mind if I join you?” Marinette asked lightly, but still made Chloe jump.

“Uh-“

“It’s just, I apparently haven’t eaten in a week. I’m quite peckish.”

Chloe smiled weakly and reached up onto the counter for another spoon and holding it out to Marinette, who took a seat beside her, before digging into the carton of Chunky Monkey.

“Oh my god.” Marinette moaned. “This is so good” she announced, already shoveling another spoonful into her mouth.

Chloe laughed, eyeing the girl with an unfamiliar expression Marinette couldn’t decipher with how used to Chloe’s look of judgement she was.

She ate another spoonful.

“Tikki!” She called out before looking back over to Chloe “Tikki loves anything sweet. She’s got to have some. Tikki!” 

The little red kwami flew into the kitchen, followed quickly behind by Adrien, who basically slid across the kitchen floor 

“What. What?! Are you getting another dream? Please stay awake Marinette, please!”

Marinette dropped her spoon. Now she felt bad.

“No no. I’m fine. I just wanted Tikki to try some of this ice cream.”

Adrien let out a sigh of relief, and fell back against a cabinet.

“You scared me.”

Marientte scooted up to him and took his hands in hers.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to worry you. I’m alright. I promise.” 

She pressed a quick peck to his lips. 

“Wide awake.”

Adrien nodded, meeting her eyes as she raised a hand to his lips, the two blushing profusely. 

Chloe cleared her throat.

“I don’t mean to interrupt, but I’ve only heard a little about the dreams from the others. What exactly are they?”

The others gave her a look and her eyes widened.

“I mean, if it’s-if you want to talk about them” she stuttered. 

Marinette nodded. 

“No worries, it’s fine. If we are all gonna be working together, you all should know what’s going on.”

She looked over at Adrien, who nodded.

“I seem to be reliving the lives of past holders of the Ladybug miraculous throughout history. Sometimes they are before the person gets the miraculous, sometimes during, sometime I-I mean they-“ 

Died.

“Anyways. Sometimes they include violent events, others not. Sometimes there are other holders, almost always there’s a Chat Noir since the two miraculouses balance each other.”

Adrien squeezed her hand “What was this one about? Were they different each time you went under?”

Marinette sighed, the life of the Red Hand still vivid in her mind.

“It was the same holder, but the scenery changed a bit each time. It was before the holder got the miraculous, and I think many of the other future holders were there as well.”

“When were you?” Asked Nino.

“What were you?” Asked Alya.

Marinette grinned. 

“Two words. Woman. Pirate.”

“Frickin what?!” Alya exclaimed.

Marinette laughed and nodded excitedly. Tikki gasped and Marinette looked down at her kwami, who had popped her head up from the ice cream carton she had made significant way through.

“The Red Hand.” She said, eyes wide.

“Yeah, that was her name” Marinette said, taking note of the kwami’s expression, maybe it was a sore subject. 

“I remember that holder” Plagg commented, “one of the fiercest Ladybugs. I liked her” he said, grinning wickedly. “This one time, she-“

An explosion sounded from outside, shaking the apartment and sending all the heroes shooting to their feet. 

“Well it was nice while it lasted” Nino sighed. Wayzz, who was on his new holder’s shoulder patted him comfortingly. 

“Not a moments rest I guess” Chloe groaned. 

Marinette laughed lightly and Chloe met her gaze. 

Rest. Funny. The one thing she didn’t want.

“So what’s the plan? Do we have a plan?” She asked, looking around at her friend’s exhausted faces from days spent fighting akumas. 

Adrien nodded. 

“Before you woke up, we had been working on a plan for how to stop Hawkmoth, or at least slow him down.” He looked at the others “I still think it’s our best option.”

The others nodded.

“Okay…Anyone want to let me in on the plan?”

Nino was the one who spoke up first.

“We want to get the book. Wayzz has been telling me about the information it holds, and how we can use it to further our understanding of how to use the miraculouses so we can get a one up on Hawkmoth.”

It makes sense. 

“It’s a good idea, but how are we gonna get the book? We don’t even know where Hawkmoth is.”

Chloe grinned, “That’s where you come in. You’re our secret weapon.”

Nino nodded, “Here’s the plan.”

——————————————————————————————————

After they all transformed, the others took off towards the epicenter of akuma activity while Marinette stayed hidden. Hawkmoth thinks she’s gone, they wanted to keep it that way. 

With the other four heroes taking center stage, Marinette stayed in the quieter zones of the city, looking for an isolated akuma. 

Once she had found one, she stayed out of sight, studying its behavior until she was positive on what the akumatized object was. At which point she called Chat Noir, they couldn’t have Hawkmoth knowing she was back until as late as possible.

Hiding in the shadows of a nearby building, Marinette watched as her cat partner in crime zipped in, struggled with the akuma for a moment, and broke the object, releasing the black and purple butterfly before taking off again towards the ever growing mass of akumas. 

Watching the akuma fly up into the sky, Marinette waited for a moment before following after it, hoping that it would lead her straight to Hawkmoth. Who, would hopefully be enough of an idiot not to notice her chasing after one akuma by being too focused watching the other heroes. 

Marinette was so preoccupied trying not to loose the akuma that Marinette didn’t realize what she was approaching until she stood right in front of it.

The Agreste Mansion. 

This couldn’t be right.

Why would the akuma be coming here?

She gasped, it must be trying to akumatize Adrien’s father! She had to get inside and de-evilize the akuma before it took him. 

But Adrien had said the house was on lockdown. Marinette would have to get creative to find a way in.

Marinette was about to call for her lucky charm when fate intervened and the front door to the mansion cracked open as Nathalie came rushing out.

Marinette let out a sigh of relief. That makes the first person she’s seen since she woke up that she knows for sure hadn’t been akumatized yet. 

Getting as much momentum as she could, Marinette used her yoyo to swing herself through the gap of the closing door, hearing Nathalie call out after her as the door shut and locked automatically after her. 

Once inside, she looked around the black and grey marble decor of the front room before spotting the akumatized butterfly pass the white staircase. 

Marinette raced after it, and watched it tase through a pair of doors she believed lead to Mr. Agreste’s atelier, looking for him no doubt.

She flung open the doors, allowing herself only a moment to nerd out over being in the office of one of her fashion idols before looking for the akuma. She spotted it flying towards the back of the room.

The back wall had two giant windows, covered up with fancy black curtains, and a tall painting of a woman between them.

Marinette paused. She must be Adrien’s mother. He had her eyes and her smile. 

Sometimes she took for granted how lucky she was to have both of her parents. 

The akuma flew through the painting and marinate looked out through one of the windows, but didn’t see the akuma flying away from the house. 

She turned back to the painting and examined it. After a moment, she noticed there was an open space behind the painting. 

Pulling a side of the painting away from the wall, it swung away from the wall and revealed a safe.

Marinette frowned, and was about to put the painting back when she saw the same was unlocked and open a crack. 

Marinette would have thought nothing of it, not wanting to invade someone’s privacy. But as Gabriel Agreste might be akumatized soon, if not already, and safes tend to hold valuable objects to an individual, it was a good bet that whatever was missing from the safe will be the akumatized object. 

If Marinette knew what was inside, and Adrien happened to know what his father kept in the safe, it was just a process of illumination to find out what is missing. 

Plus, if she was being honest, the curiosity for what a rich man like Gabriel Agreste would keep in a safe when he had no doubt thousands of dollars worth of art just lounging about the house was killing her. 

She pushed open the safe. 

Inside was a picture of Adrien’s mom, a book with TIBET written on the cover, some paper and…

The miraculous book.

Why would Gabriel Agreste have-she froze. 

Placed against the photo of Adrien’s mom was a broach in the shape of a peacock.

A miraculous. 

Everything started to piece together in Marinette’s mind. 

Adrien’s mother has been missing for over a year, and if she was the holder of the of the peacock miraculous, and Gabriel Agreste had the broach…

Marinette was hit with a wave of drowsiness. 

No. Not now. 

She whipped out her yoyo, opening it as a communicator. 

“Chat? Chat please answer.”

“M’lady? What’s wrong?”

“Chat. I’m inside your house”

Another wave.

“The akuma led me here.”

Another.

“Is my father okay?”

Fatigue rocked through her.

“Ladybug?”

“Chat. It’s Hawkmoth. He’s-“

Marinette collapsed to the ground, her communicator switching off as it hit the floor. 

Marinette struggled to keep her eyes open. 

She was already too far gone to get herself back up, but still held onto her last moments of consciousness as a figure appeared above her, a smile etched across their face as they loomed over her. 

“Ladybug, I’m so glad you could stop by.”

“Hawkmoth.”


	17. The Gang's All Here

It had been days since the fighting began, days of streets filling more and more with blood and bodies of soldiers on both sides, and it all ended with a small white flag. 

Morgan watched silently as the redcoats were led out of Yorktown, and the revolutionary war was won. 

“Morgan!” A voice rang out as someone hit her shoulder “the battle is won! Why are you spending your time watching these skum leave when you could be in the bar with us! Raising a glass to the victory of the revolution!”

“Because I’m sure you’ve drunk enough for all of us” Morgan laughed. 

To prove her point, her friend swayed on his feet and fell against a nearby building to keep himself upright. 

“Is that judgement I hear in your voice? You’ve seen as many horrors of battle as me, if not more. Is it wrong for me to find some comfort-“

“At the bottom of a bottle?”

“Come now brother,” her friend said, faking offense. “When you’re done here, come find me. We will toast to a brighter future with women, lots of women. And rum!” He slurred as he stumbled off and disappeared into one of the nearest taverns. 

Morgan let out a long breath after he was out of sight. Oh course she was overjoyed with the end of the war, but it was a lot easier to pretend to be a boy in the middle of a war zone. Now that it was over, it was only a matter of time before she was discovered. 

Morgan tilted her head down slightly, whispering into the collar of her coat “What are we going to do Tikki?”

A tiny head popped out of her jacket, “It will be alright Morgan, we’ll figure this all out.”

“I don’t want to loose you. Will the Guardian ask me to return the miraculous now that the war is over?”

Tikki snuggled herself against Morgan “You won’t loose me. While the war may be over, a whole new world is about to start. There will be hardships that you will still be needed to help with.”

To prove her point, a fight broke out down the road, and Morgan could see a group of soldiers ganging up against a Redcoat. 

“Men.” She said with a sigh as she transformed “always needing me to clean up their messes for them.”

Running up to the men, Morgan pulled out her yoyo and wrapped it around each of the men, and one by one yanking them away from the Redcoat until they were all groaning on the ground. 

“Gentlemen, please. Can we not act like civilized men? The battle is over, and the British and their sympathizers are going home. Let’s not shed any more blood when it’s not necessary, shall we?”

A man made a move towards the Redcoat who was catching his breath, and Morgan held her yoyo ready.

“What is that weapon? What sort of man fights with a toy when he could use a gun or his fists?”

“If you think a man is not a man without violence, then it I that pities you. Now go off to some cavern and do what men like you do best. Drink until your miserable lives seem worth it.”

The Redcoat let out a chuckle, which only provoked the man, and he jumped out at him, only to be thrown against a wall by Morgan’s “toy”, knocking them out cold. 

She turned to the others, who all had kept their distance since she had intervened, and she saw they were all turning away slowly, grumbling as they went on their way.

After making sure they were gone, Mortan turned to the Redcoat and offered to help him up “Need a hand?”

The man remained on the ground, mouth gaping at her “You’re like me” he said wonderstruck. 

Morgan frowned “I’m no British soldier. I just think I’ve seen enough blood for a lifetime and I would hate to see more spilt just after the King has negotiated an end to this conflict. If I was you, I would be on my way. I don’t plan on making a habit out of saving the lives of redcoats.”

“That’s not what I’m talking about. You have a miraculous.”

Morgan bit her tongue to keep from showing her surprise. 

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean. A miraculous?”

“Don’t play games with me. I’m not as dumb as those other men were, I know you have a miraculous” the man said as he stood. 

She had to find a way out of this. 

“Normally one says thank you to the person who just saved your life. I can see that you express no such pleasantries. I really must be on my way.”

The redcoat grabbed her arm.

“Unhand me now redcoat.”

“You will follow me if you don’t want me to tell everyone who you are. I have a feeling that you’re fellow soldiers won’t take kindly to finding out a woman has been fighting beside them. Fragile egos and all that” he finished, trailing off as he walked off into a shadowed area of the street, with Morgan going with him after a moment.

“If you try anything redcoat.”

“Chat Noir” the man corrected, holding his hand out to hers, and dropping it awkwardly when she didn’t accept.

“Chat Noir? That’s French isn’t it? Shame you couldn’t have joined the rest of your people on our side.”

He nodded, uttering a phrase before being consumed by the same mystical force she was while she transformed. 

“So you take the cat thing quite literally huh?” She asked, indicating to the ears and tail. 

“And your name is not as obvious is it? Let me guess…” he said, moving in closer to run a finger over the black dots decorating the red collar of her Continental Army uniform “I bet you’re called something poetic like Ladybug aren’t you.”

She didn’t dignify him with an answer. 

——————————————————————————————————————————————

Marinette could hear distant voices. 

“Nothing is physically wrong with her.”

“Then why is she like this?”

“I don’t know.”

“Remind me why I keep you around?”

“Sorry sir. I just don’t understand why we are keeping her here when you could just take the miraculous.”

Miraculous.

Take her miraculous? Where was she?

“I do not need to explain myself to you. But are you not interested in what caused her to be in this state? Something could be wrong with the miraculous.”

“Understood sir.”

“There’s also another theory I would like to test, but we can’t do that until she wakes up.”

Marinette’s eyes moved around from beneath her eyelids as she came to more fully. 

“Hawkmoth, she’s-“

Hawkmoth. 

“I can see that Nathalie, Go.”

Oh my god. 

She struggled to sit up, but her body was constrained. Her eyes flew open.

“Ah, Ladybug. Thank you for gracing us with you presence.”

Becoming more conscious by the moment, Marinette pulled against the restraints that were on her wrists and across her chest. 

“What am I doing here?”

“You tell me, you’re he one who broke into my house.”

His house. 

Bits and pieces of what had happened before she had fallen unconscious started coming back. She had been in Adrien’s house, following an akuma when she had found a miraculous in a safe. Then Hawkmoth had shown up. 

His house. 

Hawkmoth was Gabriel Agreste. 

“Mr. Agreste. Why-“

“Ah, so you know me.“

“Unfortunately.”

“I suppose that doesn’t narrow down who you could be by much, as I am quite successful.” 

“I get it. Why have a successful fashion empire when you could rule one through violence” Marinette remarked sarcastically. 

She swore she could see his eyebrows raise from under his mask.

“As you know me, might I have the pleasure of knowing who the infamous Ladybug is?”

“Sure, no thing. Just let me out of these restraints and I will show you exactly who I am.”

Hawkmoth chuckled wickedly. 

“I see that all the teasing falls to you with your cat companion missing all the action. I’m afraid he’s not invited to the party quite yet. Not when you and I have so much to talk about.”

Marinette flinched slightly, despite not wanting to let Hawkmoth know he could get to her. 

“Why haven’t you taken my miraculous? That’s what you’ve been after this whole time isn’t it? It’s not like I can stop you.”

Hawkmoth pulled a chair up from behind him, apparently planning on sticking around for a while. 

“Yes, that’s true. But I have some questions first. Like what is it that is making you fall unconscious like that?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about” she said, feigning innocence. 

“Is that where you’ve been the past week?”

She didn’t respond.

“What triggers it?”

Nothing.

“Can you even control it?”

“I don’t know what you-“

Drowsiness.

“I don’t know what you’re-“

“Well that was quick, wasn’t it?”

The now all too familiar feeling of falling unconscious hit her full force. 

“We’ll talk more when you wake. Sleep well Ladybug.”

——————————————————————————————————————————————

“M’lady? What’s wrong?”

“Chat, I’m at your house. The akuma led me here. Listen, you have to-“

“Ladybug?”

“Chat. It’s Hawkmoth, he’s-“

“M’lady are you alright?”

The communicator went dead. 

“Ladybug? Ladybug!”

“What’s wrong?” Rena Rouge asked, dropping down next to him from the roof she had been fighting an akuma on.

“I don’t know, the call cut out.”

Her eyes widened “What if she’s unconscious again? We can’t leave her alone. Did she say where she was? She was following an akuma, she could be all the way on the other side of the city.”

Chat shook his head “she said something about being at my house.”

His heartbeat quickened as he said the words out loud. What if Hawkmoth had sent the akuma to akumatize his father. Or Nathalie.

“I have to go.”

“Wait! We have to be careful about this! If Mari- if Ladybug fell unconscious in front of an akuma, it’s a good bet that Hawkmoth has her miraculous now.”

“That means we need to get to her as soon as possible! And the last place she said she was was at my house, I can’t have my father akumatized, I just can’t.”

Queen Bee ran over to them “I don’t mean to interrupt, but you two really need to start pulling your weight around here. Carapace and I can’t do this alone.”

“Not now” Rena growled. 

“Where’s Ladybug?” Queen Bee continued, unfazed by Rena’s tone “I thought she was supposed to have met up with us by now.”

“We think she might be unconscious again.”

Queen Bee’s smug expression faltered, and some worry must have made its way across her face by the confused looks she got from the other two heroes. 

“Well someone’s gotta go get her right?” She asked. 

Chat Noir nodded. 

“We can’t let all of these akumas just wander around free to rampage across Paris!” Rena contributed. 

Queen Bee looked around at their surroundings, and after a minute her face lit up 

“I think I may have a plan.”

“Uh guys?” Shouted Carapace, who was now fighting all the akumas by himself. 

“Ugh! Thanks a lot! You made me loose my train of thought.” Queen Bee complained “hold on, got it. What I’m thinking is-“

“Guys?!”

“Carapace please! I’m trying to think!”

The turtle hero crashed into the building behind them.

“You all suck” he groaned from the pile of rubble he now lay under. 

———————————————————————————————————————————

So I’m right in thinking you can’t control this.”

Marinette clutched at her chest where she had been shot in what felt like moments earlier. Judging by there no longer being a gaping hole through her, she could assume that she was awake. 

“What I’m wondering is, are these episodes because of you? Or because of the miraculous?”

Marinette remained silent beyond the heavy breathing she’s had since she woke. 

“You’re usually so talkative. Cat got your tongue? I’ve always thought Chat noir was the one with a louder personality.” 

Marinette opened her mouth to retort with some snarky comment, but her mind was still working on catching up as her body came to from the dream. 

Hawkmoth’s eyebrows raised “ah, I see. Takes you a while to bring yourself back from that state, doesn’t it?” He said.

Marinette could see the gears shifting in his head as he added a “that’s unfortunate.” More to himself than her. 

Why hadn’t her friends come for her yet? She had told Chat where she was. Although looking around, she was clearly not still in Gabriel Agreste’s atelier. She rolled her eyes. She should have guessed Hawkmoth would have an evil lair. 

Marinette would just have to find a way out herself. 

“I had planned on simply taking your and Chat Noir’s miraculouses at first.” Hawkmoth spoke, snapping Marinette out of her internal planning. 

“Now I have a few new ideas from my time with this” he said, lifting up the miraculous book for her to see. 

“Why are you still transformed?” Marinette asked blandly as her voice found its way back to her “I already know who you are, there’s no point in hiding it now.”

Hawkmoth moved to answer when a akuma mask appeared across his face and his cocky grin dropped as he flew to his feet. 

“What do you mean you lost them!” He shouted suddenly. “An entire city of akumas and you loose the four people I asked you to take care of?! Find them!” He screamed before transforming several more akumas and sending the butterflies out the circular window before them.

“They must be looking for you” he said to Marinette, keeping his gaze out the window. “No matter, they’ll never find us.”

Nathalie chose this moment to run into the room. 

“I know you said not to bother you, but the heroes are outside the house.” 

Marinette grinned.

“Your security measures are keeping them out for now, but it’s only a matter of time until they find a way inside.”

Hawkmoth cleared his throat, looking almost worried.

“Give it up Hawkmoth” Marinette called “they’ll stop you. Why not end the cycle of violence and give up your miraculous.”

“Your demand would be much more effective if you weren’t immobilized right now my dear Ladybug.” Hawkmoth cooed. “But maybe you’re right” he said solemnly as his eyes widened. 

He released his transformation and Marinette watched as the exhausted kwami collapsed onto the table next to her. 

“I’m sorry heroes of Paris. I haven’t seen Ladybug. Please tell me you can save our city.” He turned to Nathalie, “How was that?” He asked, dropping all the sincerity in his voice. 

“Perfect sir. They won’t expect a thing.”

No. 

“Nathalie, with me. Nooroo, don’t’ let her leave this room” he demanded before him and his assistant disappeared out of Marinette’s view. 

Making sure they were gone, Marinette turned to the small purple kwami,

“Are you alright?”

Nooroo blinked confusingly, probably not used to people asking about their wellbeing with a holder like Hawkmoth. 

“I’ll be okay. Hawkmoth is just wielding a lot more power than I’m used to.”

“Because of the book?”

Nooroo nodded “It has information on how to increase the abilities a miraculous can give you.”

“That must be how he’s able to akumatize so many people at once.”

Another nod. 

“Nooroo I promise we will get the miraculous away from him and keep you safe.” 

“But how? He’s never going to let anyone near the miraculous until he gets what he wants.”

“There are more of us now, we can take him” Marinette responded, “but my friends need to know who Hawkmoth is and where we are. Will you help me?

Nooroo ringed their hands worriedly “I want to, but Hawkmoth…”

“I won’t let him hurt you. I promise. We can’t’ let Hawkmoth stay this powerful Nooroo.”

The kwami scanned her expression and nodded “You’re right. What do you want me to do?”

Marinette indicated towards the straps tying her down. 

“I need you to let me out of these” she said “I can use my communicator to contact one of the other holders.”

Nooroo flew down next to one of her wrists and struggled for a moment before the strap came loose before moving to the next, and then the one binding her chest down.

Once free from those, Marinette was able to undo the rest before grabbing her yoyo and flipping it open into a communicator. 

Her hand froze. She didn’t want to drop all of this on Adrien at once, especially if it was right in front of his father. 

She pressed an icon. 

“Queen Bee? It’s me.”

“Yeah, I can see that. I didn’t know this was a phone! That’s so cool!” 

“Listen to me. I probably don’t have a lot of time. I’m in Hawkmoth’s lair.”

“Woah. What does it look like? I’m imagining black curtains with purple decor. Why is it that villains always have lairs?”

“Actually, it’s pretty dull-Focus Chloé!” 

“Right, sorry. So do you know who he is?”

“Gabriel Agreste.”

“Yeah, we’re at his house right now. We thought you would be here, but he says he hasn’t seen you.”

“No. Listen. Gabriel Agreste IS Hawkmoth!”

A moment went by before Chloé answered. 

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.” 

“I spent half of my childhood over at the Agreste’s. I would know if it was him. I would.”

“Chloé, I am so sorry. But he released his transformation in front of me. It’s him”

“Oh my-wait. Why are you still there?”

Marinette looked down at Nooroo, who could only flutter for a moment before having to touch down out of exhaustion. 

“I’m not leaving Nooroo. Chloé, we don’t have much time. He has the book. And the peacock miraculous. It’s in the safe-“ 

“How did you get out?!”

Chloé froze at the voice. Immediately recognizing it as Gabriel’s. 

“I have to go.”

“Ladybug, wait-“

“Looks like we’re out of time Ladybug”

“What are you-“

The line went dead. 

———————————————————————————————————————————

“Hello heroes of Paris, I’m so grateful for what you’ve done for this city.”

Chat Noir took a step forward. 

“You’re not akumatized” he said, eyes wide. 

Gabriel gave off a puzzled expression “No, I’m not. And now I know I certainly won’t be, knowing that Paris remains in good hands of all you heroes.”

“Have you seen Ladybug?” Rena Rouge interrupted. “We last heard that she was heading this way.”

“Yeah and now we can’t reach her” Carapace added. 

“I’m afraid now. It’s just me and my assistant Nathalie.”

“And your son? Adrien right?” Chat Noir prompted. 

“I haven’t heard from him the past few days. He’s off in New York for a modeling showcase.”

“And you haven’t checked up on him?” Chat questioned. 

“I trust my son to stay out of trouble. This is one of the first shows he’s doing himself. It will be a good practice run for when he’s older.”

“How…nice” Rena commented, making Carapace chuckle. 

A ringing sound came from Queen Bee, who stared down at her spinning top confused. 

“I’ll catch up with you guys in a sec” she said quickly, before rushing out of view. 

“I suppose Chloé being Queen Bee doesn’t change her that much” Gabriel commented.

“I think it has. Sir.” Rena said, finding herself defending Chloé Bourgeois in a strange turn of events. 

“That must be Ladybug, maybe she found Hawkmoth” Carapace noted, and Grabriel Agreste’s facade cracked slightly.

He sent a quick look that when unnoticed by the heroes to Nathalie who stood just inside the door. 

His assistant nodded in understanding and stepped outside the door. 

“Sorry to bother you sir, but you have a call.”

Gabriel Agreste nodded “I’m sorry to cut this short, but I’, expecting a call from New York. I should take this. Good luck heroes” he called as he disappeared back into the house. 

The three heroes exchanged looks. 

“Well what now?” Asked Carapace.

The ground turned around to leave, and look for Ladybug elsewhere when they saw Queen Bee come running at them.

“Where did he go?”

“Who?”

“Gabriel Agreste.”

“He had a business call-What are you doing?!” Chat yelled as Queen Bee ran straight past them and launched herself at the door. 

“We need to get inside!”

“Chloé what is going on? Stop!” Rena yelled as Chloe attempted to kick in the door. 

“He’s Hawkmoth.”

Chat pushed her away from the door “What are you talking about? Why would you say that?”

Chloé looked down at her feet.

“I’m sorry. But we need to get inside. He has Ladybug.”

“No no. I would know if my FATHER was Hawkmoth Chloé!”

“Step aside if you’re not going to help me, but either way, I’m going in there!” Chloé shouted. 

“Are you sure?” Rena asked. 

“Ladybug saw him release his transformation. And when Ladybug was on the phone, I heard him. It was Mr. Agreste.”

“Oh my god” said Rena, and Carapace could only repeat the sentiment. 

Chat just stared at the closed door until Chloé snapped him out of it.

“You can have an existential crisis later. We need to get in there! She was still transformed when we talked but her miraculous may be running out or she may pass out again!” 

Chat nodded in understanding, but his gaze was still distant. 

“I know every inch of this house. There’s no way I could miss the lair of a supervillian. Who…is my…father.”

“The whole house is on lockdown” Carapace said, interrupting the awkward atmosphere around them all “how are we going to even get in?”

“There’s a hole in the security that I created to make sure I would always have a way to sneak in and out as Chat Noir. The entrance is this way” he said half-heartedly before taking off around to the other side of the house. 

Once they were all inside Adrien’s room, Chat stopped them. 

“How do we even know where to look?”

“This house is huge” added Rena “It could take forever for us to find them.”

Queen Bee shook her head “We don’t have time for this guys. I remember her saying something about a safe.”

“That must be the safe in my father’s atelier. It’s this way.” Chat murmured, leading them all silently down the stairs, pausing in front of the door and putting an ear up to it. 

“I don’t hear anything” he said, signaling for the others stay back as he kicked the door in. 

They all rushed in, weapons in hand, but stopped in their tracks at the figure standing in front of them.

“Come to join the party?”

The heroes could only stare. 

“Ladybug?”

An akuma mask lit up around her face and she grinned.

“Yes Hawkmoth.”


	18. Akumatized

“Well, this can’t be good” murmured Carapace. 

“No kidding.”

“She’s akumatized!” He whispered loudly. 

“Really took a genius to figure it out didn’t it? Thank god you’re here Carapace, otherwise we might have never figured it out.”

“Not helping Queen Bee.”

“Sorry! sarcastic judgement is my defense mechanism.”

“What are we gonna do?”

Chat could only stare at Ladybug while the others grappled for a plan. 

“M’lady?” he asked hesitantly. 

“Hey there pretty kitty. You here to play?” She asked coldly, voice void of any of Marinette’s normal warmth. 

“You’ve been akumatized, but you’re strong, you have to fight it, fight him.”

“Now why would I do that?” She asked, fondly swinging her yoyo nonchalantly in a small arc “Hawkmoth has shown me the way, and he’ll show you too” she crooned, head tilting to the side as she observed the heroes blankly. 

“The horror” Carapace whispered “the horror!”

Chat ignored him, keeping his eyes on Ladybug who had yet to make a move against them.

“Why isn’t Hawkmoth here? Why doesn’t he come out and play?”

“But I am here” said Ladybug, her voice dropping lower. 

“Well that was creepy-oof” Carapace sucked in a breath as Alya hit him in the stomach.

“Not. Helping.”

“Is now a bad time to ask if I’m the only one digging the black with purple dots take on Ladybug’s outfit” Queen Bee whispered.

Rena nodded. Not indicating to which part of her question she referred to. 

“What do you mean YOU’RE here?” Pushed Chat.

Ladybug smiled “I apologize for not being here…in body, but you can understand why I choose to keep my distance. Ladybug here will have to do as for now.”

“What did you do to her?” Interjected Queen Bee “How are you able to speak through her?”

“In my time with Miss Ladybug, I discovered her unfortunate condition. With a subject in a state such as she’s under, I can further influence how much control the akuma has over the host.” 

“What happens when she wakes up?” Asked Rena. 

Ladybug remained silent. 

He didn’t know. 

After a moment, Ladybug straightened, and held out her hand “I’m going to need you all to surrender your miraculouses.”

Queen Bee rolled her eyes “That line has never worked for you before, and it won’t work for you now. I suggest you change your tactics, Hawkmoth” she said, spitting out his name. 

Ladybug’s grimace spread out into a wicked grin as she took hold of her yoyo. 

“Very well” she purred as she positioned herself for a standoff against the other heroes. 

Rena held up her hands “Ladybug, please-“

An akuma mask lit up across Ladybug’s face and she lunged. 

Chat took the first hit, her yoyo wrapping around her waist before she yanked it back, sending him spiraling into the air and slamming against the wall. 

Next she went after Queen Bee, who had been attempting to sneak up on Ladybug and sting her with her spinning top. Ladybug laughed and yanked on the rails holding up the curtains over the window, sending them crashing on top of the blonde hero. 

Chat took advantage of her being distracted by their yellow and black striped comrade and incapacitated her arms with his button, grabbing her by pulling her back against his chest. 

“Ladybug. You need to fight him. You’re better than this.”

“Let. Go. Of. Me.” She shouted, struggling against him. 

Rena moved towards the painting of Adrien’s mom and their akumatized friend actually growled. 

“You really don’t want us in here do you?” Carapace teased as Rena ran her fingers across the frame of the painting.”

“Get away from there!” Ladybug yelled, attempting to break free from Chat Noir. 

Rena paused as she found a notch behind the painting, and pulled it open to reveal the unlocked safe. 

Ladybug let out an inhuman like screech, struggling violently against Chat Noir’s grasp, who winced in pain from the difficulty of keeping her trapped. 

Opening the safe, Rena and the other heroes could see the book and Peacock miraculous. Chat only allowed himself a moment to stare at the photo of his mom before turning back to the situation at hand. But that was more than enough time, for Ladybug to gain the upper hand. 

Rena reached for the miraculous and Ladybug exploded, breaking out of his arms and attacked. 

The fox hero dodged her first swing, but was caught my the second, and was thrown to the ground. Ladybug grinned down at Rena wickedly before reaching down and grading the foxtail necklace. 

The moment she broke off the miraculous, Rena disappeared from below her. 

Confused, Ladybug looked up and discovered the book and miraculous missing from the safe. 

Whirling around, she was met with a now empty room. 

They were gone. 

An akuma mask lit up around her face.

“FIND THEM” boomed the voice inside her head. 

“Yes Hawkmoth.”

The heroes had all scattered once they were out of the house, knowing that Ladybug would come after them, but would have to choose which one of them to prioritize. 

Carapace had backed off, but followed behind Rena Rouge as she held the book and miraculous. He was proven right to do so when he saw Ladybug swing past him, landing before Rena. 

By the time he caught up, Ladybug and Rena Rouge were fighting against each other at full force, and Rena was on the defense in an attempt to keep the miraculous out akumatized Ladybug’s grasp. 

Ladybug swung her yoyo at the other hero and Carapace saw Rena break away from a now illusion version of herself, reaching down for the book and miraculous she had set on the ground while Ladybug continued to fight that copy of her. 

Ladybug’s yoyo cut through the illusion, evaporating it, before the yoyo wrapped around the real Rena’s neck. 

“Sly fox….” Ladybug crooned, kneeling down to be at the same level as the suffocating hero. “What’s the saying? Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice shame on-“ she faltered, a look of confusion flashing across her face for a moment before it vanished just as quickly as it had appeared. 

She tightened the yoyo string, and Rena grappled to pull it away from her skin. 

“Please” she choked out. 

Carapace moved to intervene when Queen Bee beat him to it, racing onto the scene and stinging Ladybug with her spinning top.

Ladybug cried out as the paralysis spread through her body and Queen Bee wrestled the yoyo out of her hand, releasing the coil, giving Rena a well needed breath. 

“What’s happening?” Said Ladybug, and Carapace moved to tell akumatized Ladybug off when he paused at her expression. Her cold stare had melted away and he saw fear in her eyes.

She looked down at Rena, who was still laid on the ground, wheezing. 

“Are you okay?” 

The others looked up at her confused. 

“Guys? What’s going on? Why can’t I move?” 

She looked around as far as she could while paralyzed “where are we? Where’s Hawkmoth? I was just in-“

She looked down at herself and gasped. 

“No.”

Queen Bee held up her hands “hey, it’s okay. You’re okay.”

Ladybug was breathing heavily.

“Am I?”

Queen Bee nodded melancholily.

“You’ve been akumatized.”

—————————————————————————————————

“Viva la France!” Came a shout as another cannon fire sounded mere yards away. 

Marie watched as the resistance ran past her window, followed by French soldiers. 

The fighting had been raging on for days now, the cobblestones in the streets dyed red from blood until the rain came and washed it away. 

A gunshot rang out from the direction the men had ran and she winced, hoping that they hadn’t just lost another one from their side. 

“What are you doing girl?!” Her father shouted as he dragged her away from the window by the back of her dress before he slammed the window shut and locked the latch. 

“I’ve told you. Stay away from the windows.”

She couldn’t understand him. 

“How can you ignore all of this?” She asked, indicating to the now locked window. 

“It is none of our business” her father grumbled. 

“None of our business? A revolution is raging outside, bringing with it a new world!”

“He only thing that will come from this violence will be bloodshed, and even worse treatment of the public from the crown.”

Marie ran to her bed, grabbing the coat draped over one of the bedposts. 

“If you choose to do nothing, fine. But I believe in the revolution, and I will go and do whatever I can to help the cause” she said, moving towards the door. 

Her father grabbed her arm as she passed him. 

“You will do no such thing.”

“Let go of me.” She demanded. His grip only tightened. 

“This is all that boy’s fault isn’t it? He’s the one filling your head with this nonsense.”

“No father. He’s helped open my eyes.” She stated, before slamming her heel down on his foot, using his surprise to sneak out the door. 

As it was getting dark, Marie made her way through the streets of Paris with relative ease, diving into the shadows whenever soldiers crossed her path. Eventually, she arrived at her destination. 

Knocking on the door twice, with a pause before a third, she waited outside before it cracked open an inch, and a man’s face came into into view. 

“Marie!” The man bellowed cheerfully before turning away from the door and shouting for Ari and teasing that his lady was here. 

She rolled my eyes “are you going to let me in Navine?” 

The man opened the door wide and pulled her into a hug that lifted her off the ground. 

She giggled as he swayed her back and forth, her legs dangling. 

“What’s this?” Came a voice from behind them and her captor turned them to face the figure. 

“Marie? Navine? How could you?” He cried out dramatically as he placed a hand over his heart, feigning being wounded. 

Navine laughed and finally set Marie down.   
“I’m sorry old friend, but in times like these, one must take advantage of these moments in the embrace of a woman when in the midst of war.”

“Two men vying for my affection. How ever shall I choose?” she drawled, playing along. 

Ari stepped forward, “I suppose I’ll just have to prove my love to you” he said, pulling her into him by the waist and crashing his lips to hers.

Marie smiled into the kiss, breathing heavily then they finally moved apart, but only by a few inches, their faces remaining close together.”

“I’ve missed you my love” Ari whispered into her neck, kissing it gently. 

“It took me a while to get out of the house. My father had done everything but nail the door shut.” She breathed. 

Ari pulled back, cupping her face with his hands “it would be safer if you stayed at home” he admitted, and Marie put a finger to his lips. 

“Where you are, I am. This fight means as much to me as to anyone else dreaming of a better tomorrow. I deserve to do my part.”

Ari sighed, pulling her back into him again in a way that had her feeling like he was breathing life back into her that she had lost while they were apart for so long. 

Navine cleared his throat and they reluctantly pulled away from each other, finally remembering that their friend was still with them.

“This can wait till the war is won no? Keep your eye on what is important.” 

“I am” Ari said defensively and Navine chuckled. 

“I meant her.” He said, gesturing to Marie with a wink. 

She smiled at him. 

“If we have any chance at winning this, it’s going to be because we have people like her.”

Ari nodded, squeezing her hand softly before she pulled away and took off into the main room of the tavern.

The two boys looked at her incredulously. 

“Well? What are we waiting for? We have a revolution to win.”

—————————————————————————————————

When Marinette started to come to, she felt weird. 

It felt like something was banging in her head, poking and prodding into her mind until she went under again. 

She could hear shouting this time, and she pushed until she could register the noise. 

Shouting filled her head all at once and when she finally felt connected to her body again she realized she couldn’t move. 

“What’s happening?” She said finally, having to dig each word out of her jumbled mind. 

Her eyes fluttered open and she saw Carapace staring at her before he switched his attention to Rena, who was on the ground, holding her throat. 

“Are you okay?” 

Her friend wouldn’t look at her. 

“Guys? What’s going on? Why can’t I move?” 

They were all looking at her like she had sprouted a third arm. 

“Where are we? Where’s Hawkmoth? I was just in-“

She moved her eyes down as much as she could with her paralysis, and saw the clothing that covered her skin, black with glowing purple spots. Her breathing quickened. 

“No.”

Queen Bee moved towards her, moving her hands up from where they had been hovering over her spinning top “Hey, it’s okay. You’re okay.”

She couldn’t move, couldn’t breath, couldn’t think even, what with what felt like someone taking to her head with a crowbar. 

This couldn’t be happening. 

“Am I?”

Queen Bee was the one to answer. 

“You’ve been akumatized.”

If Marinette hadn’t been a healthy, French teenager, she probably would’ve had a heart attack right there. 

Her skin crawled and she had the overwhelming urge to tear into herself and rip out the invading force that she could feel like a seeping darkness trailing through her veins. 

With her body still paralyzed, she felt trapped completely, and her breathing quickened until she was hyperventilating. 

Chat Noir arrived on the scene and after having a silent conversation with the others, he moved up towards her. 

“Is it…you?”

She wanted to say yes, but the voices whispering in the back of her had her move past the question. 

“How did I get here? I was dreaming? How was Hawkmoth able to control me in that state?”

“We don’t know.”

Oh great. 

She looked over at Rena Rouge, whose hands were still clutching her neck protectively. Marinette’s eyes trailed down to her discarded yoyo, it’s string still loose. 

“Did I-“ she looked back at her friend, who wouldn’t meet her gaze. “Oh my-I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to-“

“It’s okay” her best friend croaked “I know it wasn’t you.”

But it was. 

“Hawkmoth made me do that to you, and I did.”

“But you’re out of it now right?” Asked Queen Bee “You still look akumatized, but you’re you right?”

She ignored the whispers and pangs of pain crashing through her mind and nodded “I’m me.” 

The whispers turned to shouts and a akuma mask appeared over her 

“Ladybug, why have you not returned with the miraculouses?” A voice said invasively into her mind. 

Marinette was about to spit back some insult to tell him she was herself again and no longer under his control when she paused. 

She had promised to get Nooroo out, and the easiest way for her to get back into that lair would be to have him believe she was still under his influence. 

“Ladybug, why can’t I see through the mask” he demanded. 

Marinette smiled, that was good to know. 

She responded as coldly as she could. 

“I have lost the heroes. They must have transformed out of their miraculouses.”

The others looked at her confused and Chat moved to say something but Marinette widened her eyes, hoping that he would understand that meant to be quiet since she still couldn’t move. 

“Worry not Ladybug. They’ll make themselves known soon enough. In the meantime, make your way back here. We have plans to make.”

Marienette looked over to her friends, and watched as Carapace took a slight step forward to put himself between her and Rena. 

Queen Bee’s fingers itched above the spinning top attached to her hip and Rena still wouldn’t look at her. 

They were scared of her. 

And maybe they were right to be. 

“Ladybug?” Boomed Hawkmoth’s voice as it rattled through her head, leaving no corner of her mind without pain. 

“You will make your way back to me. Understand?”

She looked over at the worried expressions of her friends. She had to do this. 

“Yes Hawkmoth” she crooned, mimicking how she had heard akumatized victims say it before best she could, and the glowing mask vanished. 

The others remained silent, staring at her. 

Marinette avoided their gazes, instead focusing on her paralysis, realizing that some feeling had come back into her fingers as she wiggled them about. 

Chat was the first to speak. “Are you…still you?”

“Yeah, still me” she said, smiling weakly before it faltered as a wave of drowsiness surged through her. “I’m not sure for how much longer though. You all need to get away from me.”

“No!” Shouted Queen Bee. “No way are we leaving you!”

Marinette’s eyes locked with the blonde’s. 

“I’m not sure you have much of a choice” 

Another wave. 

“My other self is on her way. I can’t risk her hurting any of you.”

Her blond enemy turned friend shook her head “but the other you will run straight back to Hawkmoth.”

“I know. That’s what I’m counting on.” 

The others frowned. 

“I have a plan.”

“Care to enlighten us?” Asked Carapace.

“While I’m under Hawkmoth’s control while unconscious, I’m my old self while I’m awake. Well, except for this” she said gesturing down at her ensemble. “If I can convince him I’m still akumatized when I’m awake, I can use that time to get close enough to take his miraculous.”

“That’s a big if” muttered Carapace. 

“But it’s the only plan we’ve got.” 

“No it isn’t!” Interrupted Queen Bee “that’s the plan?! You could get hurt! Here’s a better plan, we find whatever is akumatizing you, we break it, and you turn back to your normal self!” 

“I promised I wouldn’t leave Nooroo.” 

That quieted Queen Bee’s rambling.

“Plus, it won’t be that easy to de-akumatize me.”

Another wave shocked through her. 

“Sure it will! What are our options huh? Your earrings? Yoyo?”

“Pigtail holders?” Joked Carapace. The others chuckled along with him.

“My heart.”

That stopped their laughter. 

“What do you mean your heart?” Demanded Chat, speaking for the first time in a while. 

“The last thing I remember before falling unconscious in Hawkmoth’s lair was him summoning an akuma and plunging it into my chest.”

“Oh my god” murmured Alya, who now didn’t look as if she was scared of her best friend, but FOR her. 

Another wave hit her and Marinette stumbled, and with her legs still mainly paralyzed, Queen Bee surged forward to steady her. 

The whispers were getting louder in her head again.

“You all need to go.”

Queen Bee shook her head, “no way.”

“I’m not sure how long I’m going to stay conscious and you can’t let the other me catch you. Go.”

Carapace helped Rena to her feet, and with one last place at their akumatized friend, they walked away. 

Chat and Queen Bee hesitated. 

“Are you sure about this?” Asked Queen Bee. 

Ladybug’s head dropped “Go. Please.”

“Look, I-be careful” pleaded Chat. 

Ladybug chuckled and raised her gaze to meet his. 

“I could tell you the same thing” she said vindictively. “Because the moment this paralysis wears off enough…I’m coming after you.” She said grinning wickedly. 

Any kindness from Ladybug’s voice moments ago was gone. 

She was gone.


	19. Akuma

When Marinette came to, she was back in the Agreste Mansion, with no idea how she had gotten back there or what she had been doing since.

She looked down at herself, she was still in akumatized Ladybug form. She looked at herself in one of the mirrors in the room, her earrings still had all their dots. Which meant she had either released the transformation for a bit while she was out, or being akumatized meant her miraculous didn’t run out of power. 

“I’ll be right on it sir,” came a voice and the doors to the room flooded open as Nathalie came rushing in with a tablet in one hand and a messy stack of papers in the other. She jumped when she saw Ladybug and the loose papers flew out of her arms and drifted disorganized down to the ground. 

“Goodness! Your startled me!” Nathalie exclaimed, clutching her chest. Then her eyes narrowed. “Didn’t Hawkmoth ask you to meet him upstairs?” She asked, gesturing to the painting of Adrien’s mom. 

Marinette put on her best poker face and sent off a deadpan stare “I was just on my way.”

The assistant seemed to buy it and dropped to the ground, picking up the papers and Marinette only just resisted helping her, it wouldn’t be in her character. During her hesitation, she had waited to long and Nathalie looked back up to her “What are you waiting for? Go.”

When she waled into the lair, Hawkmoth was stood in front of the circular window. 

“What took so long?” He asked without looking away from his view of Paris. 

Marinette had to work fast in coming up with a vague enough response that still wouldn’t raise any red flags. 

“I was unavoidably detained.”

“I see,” he said, nodding slightly, seeming to buy her excuse. “I have yet to hear from any akumas about the heroes resurfacing.”

That was good.

“What’s the next move Hawkmoth?”

He looked away from the window finally and turned his attention to her “It’s a waiting game so nothing or now. I have business to attend to,” he said before releasing his transformation. “You will stay here till I return.”

“Yes Hawkmoth” she said, and he left. Unfortunately taking Nooroo with him. 

She waited a few moments to make sure he was truly gone before moving to explore around the room. It was pretty empty beyond the table she had been kept captive on and a single chair. She moved on to examine the part of the floor where Hawkmoth was able to come and go. She couldn’t find any sort of button or lever. 

Thinking back, she remembered him hitting his cane against the ground. That must be how he does it. She grabbed the chair and returned to the spot, using one of the legs to tap the ground, mimicking his cane. 

Nothing happened for a moment and she was about to jump off when the platform moved and she barely had enough time to drop the chair before she was descending. 

The platform stopped in a room below that was like an indoor garden.

Stepping off the platform, she walked into the garden and saw some sort of structure in the center. 

Moving closer, she now recognized that it was a chamber of some sort and inside was a…woman. 

A moment passed and Marinette recognized her from the painting in Gabriel’s office. 

It was Emilie Agreste, Adrien’s mother. 

What the actual-This was some sort of twisted Snow White- She needed to breathe. 

She examined the case and found a panel on the side reading off some sort of vitals. She was alive, but in some sort of comatose state. 

Had Hawkmoth done this to her? She didn’t look injured, so if she ever had been, she’s been in this state long enough for any injuries to heal. 

Marinette was hit by a wave of dizziness and she had to lean against the pod to keep herself upright. 

She was really getting tired of these dreams. 

She looked over the pod again. She wasn’t sure how long she had so she needed to get as much information as possible in case it was a while before she could come back here again.

The panel showed Adrien’s mom’s heartbeat and brain patterns. She wasn’t an expert, but they looked pretty good. Pretty normal. She observed the many buttons, none of which blatantly suggested PRESS TO WAKE UP

She could barely hold herself up now and all of her weight was against the pod as her legs threatened to give out. 

“Ladybug, the heroes have just de-akumatized Frozer…”

Hawkmoth’s voice grew distant as Marinette’s eyes fluttered shut. She lost her grip on the pod, her hand hitting the panel on her way down. 

“Ladybug? Do you understand? Go after them and take their miraculouses.” 

Her eyes shot open and she grinned up at the ceiling from where she lay on the ground “It would be my pleasure Hawkmoth.”

——————————————————————————————————————

They only stopped back at Chloé’s for a moment, grabbing as much as they could and only pausing for a moment to discuss where to go next. 

“I don’t understand why we can’t stay here,” said Chloé.

“We don’t know how many of Marinette’s memories akumatized her has. We can’t risk her remembering this place and coming after us” said Adrien. 

“We need to go somewhere she wouldn’t think of,” said Alya. 

“But by that thinking, she will know we will try to hide somewhere she wouldn’t think of, therefore making her think of it,” said Nino. 

The others just stared at him.

“Think about it! We should really hide somewhere she would think was too obvious!”

It made sense in a crazy way.

“But where?” Asked Alya. 

“What about the bakery?” Suggested Adrien. 

Within the hour, the group was stealthily making their way from Chloé’s to Marinette’s, making sure to avoid any detection from akumas. 

Alya went in first, checking to see if Marinette’s parents were still trapped in the back room, but they had gotten loose, and the bakery was abandoned. 

“Guys! It’s clear!” She shouted and turned around to see Nino already digging into a handful of macaroons. 

She looked at him disapprovingly. 

“What?” He asked around a mouthful of sweets. “Haven’t you noticed the apocalypse outside? We can’t let these baked goods go to waste!” 

Adrien and Chloé seemed to agree if the croissants in their hands were any lead to go on.   
Alya rolled her head and dug through her purse before placing some money into the tip jar near the register before giving in and grabbing a croissant of her own. The kwamis all took off into the kitchen, Plagg squealing in glee when his eyes fell on the cheese shelf. 

“Heaven!” He purred before digging in. The others would have laughed if it wasn’t for the past few days they had all had. 

Marinette. 

Alya had lost her best friend. 

No. Not lost. Her best friend had been taken. Taken and brainwashed to hurt her friends. 

Alya knew what that was like. She had been akumatized herself, and Marinette had saved her. Albeit, she hadn’t known it was her. 

The difference is that breaking her cellphone had saved her. How are they supposed to save Marinette when what akumatized her is her heart. 

Ladybug saved the city over and over again. Now it was their turn to save her and there was nothing she could do. 

She hadn’t even been able to meet her gaze. 

What if she never got the chance to see her friend again?

Nino snapped her out of her inner spiral by waving a chocolate eclair under her nose. 

“You see lost in thought,” he said as she bit into the sweet. 

“It’s just been a day.” She sighed, leaning her head against his chest and he wrapped his arms around her.

“We’ll get her back. We’ll find a way.”

“But how?”

Nino reached down into his backpack and pulled out the miraculous book. “If Hawkmoth used the book to akumatize Marinette, it must be able to tell us how to reverse it without hurting her.” 

Alya could have kissed him, but Chloé and Adrien were still there and she got a bit nervous with PDA. She made do with pressing a kiss to his cheek. 

“You’re a genius” she whispered and he blushed before heading off to find somewhere quiet to read. 

Alya watched him go before checking in on the others. 

Adrien was in the kitchen speaking with the kwamis in hushed tones. His face was solemn and she thought it was best not to intrude. So, she moved on to track down Chloé, who was no longer on the floor of the bakery. After a moment or two of searching, she found the blonde ex-enemy now teammate in Marinette’s room. 

“What are you doing up here?”

Chloé let out a gasp in surprise and dropped the photo she had been holding in her hands.   
“Ah! A little warning please!”

Alya looked down at the photograph, it was of Marinette at the 15th anniversary party for her family’s bakery.

Alya remembered picking out that dress with her. 

“Why are you looking at this?”

Chloé wouldn’t meet her gaze, and moved to pick up the photo “I’m just, trying to figure out how we can save Marin-Ladybug.”

“Ah,” said Alya, “I see.”

Something had been up with Chloé, and while before giving her the bee miraculous, Alya could’ve named a hundred other people she would rather talk to, as a team, they needed to not keep stuff back from one another. 

“Hey. Are you-Are you alright?” She asked tentatively. 

Chloé looked up from the picture and met Alya’s gaze.

“Of course, why would you even ask-“

“Because we are a team now, and we are all each other have. And what with Marinette being gone-“ she choked on the word. “If we want to take down Hawkmoth, save Paris, and save marionette, we need to work together. Trust one another. I just want to you to know you can tell me anything.”

A tear fell down Chloé’s cheek. “It’s just, I’ve never told anyone, or even admitted it, but now…”

“Now what?” Alya asked, sitting down next to Chloé who closed her eyes and blurted out the words

“I like Marinette.”

Alya lost any capability to speak functionally and could only stare. At which point a yell came from downstairs. 

“Guys! I have a plan. Time to go.”

———————————————————————————————————————

“Please let this work”

Marinette was thrown into consciousness violently, pain branching out through her entire body. 

“Stop! You’re hurting her!”

Her skin felt as if it was boiling and her eyes flew open with a gasp and she could see her friends standing above her. 

“Ladybug?”

“What happened?” She asked and attempted to sit up, but the others all pushed her back down, each holding onto one of her limbs.

“I’m sorry, but please, try not to move” said Nino. 

“Why?” 

Another shooting pain spread out through her body like a firework. 

“What are you doing to me?” She groaned. 

“We’re trying to remove the akuma. Now please, stay as still as you can. I am literally holding your heart in my hands.”

“What are you talking about-Oh my God!” 

One of Nino’s hands was literally inside her chest! It looked like it was phasing through it. 

“Stay calm. You’re going to be fine. I know what I am doing.”

“Do you? Last I checked you weren’t a heart surgeon!” she shouted as her body felt as if it had been lit on fire. 

“I can tell you are in a lot of pain so I’m going to let the lack of faith in my abilities go.” He looked over at the others. “Now, I’m really going to need you guys to hold her down for this part. It’s going to get a lot worse.”

“How could it get worse than-“

She blacked out. 

When she came to, the others were all staring down at her.

“What happened?”

“You passed out when Nino was messing with your heart.”

“All I remember is pain”

“Gosh, you actually hold your friend’s heart in your hand to save them from being akumatized and I don’t even get a thank you.”

Marinette spilled weakly and squeezed his hand. “Did it work?”

Her friend faked insult “did you doubt my genius?”

“Of course she didn’t” said Alya, pressing a kiss to his cheek, making him blush. 

Marinette sat up and looked down at herself. She was back to her good old red with black dots self. 

“Thank goodness,” said Adrien, taking her hand in his. 

Marinette looked up at Chloé, who smiled weakly “I’m glad you’re alright.”

Marinette nodded before turning to the others “We better get going.”

They looked at her confused.   
“We just got you back,” said Alya, “let’s take a break, you need to rest.”

She shook her head “I’m fine. What we need to do is get back to Hawkmoth’s lair to rescue Nooroo and-“ she halted his speech, eye’s flitting to Adrien’s.

“And?” Prompted Nino. 

“Adrien, while I was at the lair…I came across…well, I found-I found your mother.”

She could see the moment he realized what she had just said. His entire demeanor changing to reveal the him that hadn’t been able to escape the crippling sorrow of loosing his mother. 

“What do you mean you saw her?” Asked Nino. 

“She’s alive,” said Marinette, keeping her eyes on Adrien’s expression. 

“She’s alive,” he murmured to himself in barely a whisper. 

“Well? How is she? Where is she? How has Hawkmoth kept her all this time?” Asked Nino. 

“She’s in some sort of chamber. I didn’t get that great of a look before I went under again. But, I did see a panel reading off vitals” she said. 

“We have to save her from Hawkmoth!” 

“From my dad” Adrien corrected. “My dad has her, and he’s Hawkmoth, the villain we’ve spent over a year fighting against.” 

Nino put a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “You don’t have to come with us. You can sit this one out. I get how you might now be able to fight him and that’s okay. Let us handle this.” 

Adrien shook his head. “No. He stopped being my father the moment he began akumatizing the citizens of Paris, akumatizing my friends, akumatizing you,” he said, squeezing Marinette’s hand. “He took my mother from me, I will have no trouble taking him down.” He transformed. “Let’s go.”

When they arrived in front of the Agreste’s mansion, Hawkmoth and his army of akumas were waiting for them.

“Hello heroes.” His gaze fell on Ladybug. “I see Ladybug’s back to his normal self. How unfortunate as she will soon be wishing she was still on the winning side.”

Chat took a step forward, “stop all of this. You have caused so much hurt to this city. When will you stop!”

Hawkmoth grinned, “as soon as I have your miraculouses,” he said, and with a wave of his hand, the akumas descended upon the heroes. 

Ladybug went head to head with Volpina, slashing her way through the illusions with her yoyo as quickly as possible so she didn’t lose the original akuma who taunted her as they fought, playing into her weaknesses. 

“Give it up Ladybug. You only delay the inevitable as you risk the lives of your friends. Of course that’s what you always do isn’t it? Why dirty your own hands when you can have others do it for you. You’re pathetic-“

The duplicate Volpinas faded as the real one crumpled to the ground, revealing Queen Bee with her spinning top. “I was getting tired of hearing her whine” she said before putting her hand on Ladybug’s shoulder. “She’s wrong about you. Don’t listen to her,” she said before diving back into her fight against Despair Bear who had attached to Gorizilla. 

Ladybug de-evilized Volpina and helped to Lila to safety before going back into the fight. 

Carapace was playing a defensive fight against Stoneheart, using his power of protection to shield himself from strikes until he backed the akuma into a corner. 

“Ladybug!” 

She quickly swung herself over and released Ivan from the akuma. 

Looking over at Rena, she saw she was using her illusions to round up all the Sapotis. Carapace moved to go help her but Ladybug held up a hand “I got it, you go get the civilian to safety.”

Rena illusioned the Sapotis to believe they were trapped and she and Ladybug moved through, breaking each of the akumatized objects until they found the original two and freed them. Once freed, the two girls clung to Alya and she cast an illusion around them to make them disappear. 

Chat was fighting against Stormy Weather and Ladybug moved to join him when she heard a scream. 

Whipping around, she saw Queen Bee clutching her chest as blood soaked through the front of her suit. 

“No!” Ladybug yelled as she whipped her yoyo around to knock the invisible bow from the Mime’s hand and quickly de-evilized him before racing over to where Chloé had fallen. 

“You’re going to be okay, you’re going to be-“ She chocked on her words as the blonde was already gone, her eyes distant as her transformation fell away. 

Carapace ran up to them. “What happened-agh!”

Ladybug looked up through tear blurred eyes and saw the Bubbler standing over her with the Puppeteer at his side, holding the turtle miraculous in one hand and a doll version of the Bubble in the other.” 

Her akumatized friend smiled, “it’s been a while Ladybug.”

She moved to engage when a sickening crunch came from behind her. 

“Ladybug?” Came the strained voice of Rena. 

She turned and saw her best friend without her transformation with Riposte’s sword protruding from her stomach while the akuma stood beside her, triumphantly holding up the fox miraculous. 

Ladybug screamed as her friend collapsed to the floor. 

Chat. She needed to find Chat. 

“Chat Noir!”

“No need to shout m’lady” purred a voice into her ear, but it sounded wrong. 

“Copycat.” She growled before lunging and quickly de-evilizing the akuma.

“Chat!” 

She spotted him near Hawkmoth and raced to help him when she ran into an invisible wall. 

“I’m sorry, but I’ll be needing your miraculous.” Came the voice of Evillustrator. 

“You will never get it. I will NEVER surrender to Hawkmoth and give up my miraculous!” She yelled as she threw herself against Evillustrator and used his surprise to get the upper hand. 

Once he was gone, she turned back towards Chat noir and jumped when she found he was right in front of her. 

“Chat! They akumatized Nino again! And Chloé…and Alya!” She let out a sob she couldn[’t contain and looked down towards her feet. 

As her gaze fell down towards the ground, her eyes caught on Chat’s hand, which was covered with the energy of a cataclysm. 

She looked back up at him and saw his eyes were filled with tears. 

“What are you doing?” She gasped. 

“I’m sorry, but I need your miraculous.”

“What? What are you-“

“It’s the only way to save my mother” he said, taking another step forward.

“Chat, stop-“ 

He lunged and she thought she had avoided his touch but his hit landed on her ankle. 

“I’m sorry, but I need my mother, and this is the only way. Please understand.” 

As the destructive energy swallowed her up, she saw Hawkmoth smile. 

“That’s my boy.”


	20. Heartbreak

Marinette woke up screaming. 

“Marinette! You’re okay, you’re okay!” 

She flinched and moved away from the voice. She could still feel the cataclysm disintegrating every cell of her body. How was she not dead. 

“Stay away from me!” She yelled, her voice hoarse, her hands covering her ears, her eyes burning and filled with tears.

A hand touched her shoulder and she shoved the person away and held up a hand to stop the person in front of her and used the other to rub away the tears that were blurring her eyesight. Once they were clear enough, she was was able to make out the figure standing in front of her Adrien. 

“You’re alright, you’re safe” he said comfortingly, smiling softly at her as he held out a hand that sent her scrambling away. 

“Don’t you touch me!”

Something seemed to click in Adrien’s mind as he realized that Marinette’s fear was directed towards him specifically. He looked up to the others for help. 

“Marinette,” Alya said, stepping forward. 

Her friend’s eyes widened but she didn’t turn around. 

“Marinette,” she repeated and but Marinette kept her gaze on Adrien. 

“This is cruel. Haven’t you done enough?”

He shook his head, “Marinette, what are you-“

Alya walked around and knelt down next to her and Marinette jumped. 

“Marinette you’re okay! You’re safe!”

“How?” Chocked out her friend as she placed a hand on on her arm as if to make sure she was real. 

She looked over to the others and her eyes widened to an impossible size when she saw Chloé. 

She turned back to Alya and threw her arms around her before bursting into tears. 

“I don’t understand,” she sobbed “how are you alive?”

The others exchanged looks. 

“Oh no,” exclaimed Nino. 

“What?” Demanded Adrien. 

“Well the book did say-I just didn’t think it was THAT literal…”

Chloé knelt down so Marinette could see her from her position holding Alya, “Are you alright?”

Marinette didn’t respond verbally. Instead she pulled away from Alya only to throw her arms around the blonde, who after a moment hugged her back just as tightly, “I can’t believe it, I’m so glad you’re okay” she cried. 

“Nino, explain” said Adrien, interrupting the scene. 

“Well, I read in the book how to de-akumatize Marinette, and to free the akuma, you have to break the akumatized object.”

“Right,” said Adrien, following along. “What does that have to do with-“

“Well in this case, the object was her…heart.” 

“Yeah, that’s what was with all the phasing through her heart.”

“Right, well that part was just the starting of the process.”

“Nino,” Adrien demanded, “she won’t even look at me!” 

Marinette just burrowed her head into Chloé’s shoulder more deeply, weeping softly. 

“Well, to free the akuma, I think she had to experience true heartbreak, and so she must have had some sort of hallucination that was traumatic enough to free the akuma.”

“So that’s what was happening while she was seizing?” Asked Alya. 

Chloé’s eyes widened and she attempted to pull out of her hug with Marinette but the hero just pulled her in tighter. “Alya, she said she couldn’t believe you were alive. I think she saw some of us die.”

“Yeah, but none of that actually happened.”

“To me it did,” Marinette said finally, pulling out of her embrace with Chloé and pulling into herself. 

“It wasn’t real,” Alya said, placing a hand over Marinette’s. 

“I know that now, but at the time, it was real to me and I just need some time okay?”

“Marinette,” Adrien started and she held up a hand. 

“I just need some time,” she repeated and then looked down at herself and saw she was still transformed. 

“I need to talk to Tikki, we’ll be in the kitchen” she said before pulling her hand away from Alya and disappearing into the kitchen. 

After a moment, the others could see the light of releasing a transformation flood the room before it faded. 

“She’ll be okay right?” Asked Alya. 

“Eventually,” responded Nino. 

“Tikki, I am so sorry! Are you alright?” 

The red kwami nibbled on the macaroon in her hand. Her red and black colors had faded significantly but were starting to return to their normal vibrancy with each bite. 

“I’m alright, it’s not your fault Marinette.”

“I didn’t think it was possible for holders to be akumatized.”

“It’s possible, just more difficult. Holders tend not to give in as easily to negative emotions as others.”

“But I did, I’m so sorry Tikki.”

“You didn’t Marinette. Hawkmoth found a way around it from something in the miraculous book. And the state you are in during your dreams made you vulnerable enough for him to akumatize you.”

“But-“

“Marinette, you are one of the most pure and kind holders I have ever had! I am so proud of what you have been able to do in the year that we’ve been together.”

Marinette smiled weakly, “what was it like Tikki? For you? I was only aware for parts of it. Were you witnessing all of it?”

Tikki shook her head. “Normally I’m able to see what the holder does while transformed, but the akuma blocked my vision. Most of the time you were akumatized I spent fighting against the akuma. The times you gained consciousness was when I was able to surprise the akuma enough to wake you.”

“Thank you Tikki.”

Her kwami gobbled down the rest of the sweet before asking tentatively, “What happened when they freed the akuma from you? All I could feel was crippling pain.”

The image of a sword protruding from Alya flashed before her eyes. She saw the blood pooling from Chloé’s mouth onto the courtyard, saw Nino’s face the second before he was forced back into being the Bubbler, saw the look on Adrien’s face as she crumpled to dust. 

“My heart had to be broken. I experienced what would make that happen.”

“But what-“

“I can’t Tikki. Please don’t make me talk about it. Please.”

Tikki nodded and fluttered up to Marinette, cuddling into her holder. 

“Marinette?”

The girl looked up from her laughing fit Tikki had tickled her into and saw Chloé standing in the doorway, smiling softly at the scene in front of her. 

“I’m sorry to bother you, but the kwamis say they need Tikki.”

Marinette nodded and her kwami flew out of the room. 

“I understand if you want to be alone” Chloé said, shifting awkwardly on her feet. 

Marinette shook her head, “No stay, please. Tell me what’s happened while I’ve been away.”

Chloé nodded and moved to lean against the counter next to her. 

“Well, after we had last seen you when you were akumatized, we came back here. Nino gave a pretty convincing argument for how it was safest to hide in a place the other you would think was too obvious. Nino has been spending nearly every moment with the book and Wayzz, trying to figure out a way to defeat Hawkmoth. That’s how he found a way to de-akumatize your heart. I guess he thought the “breaking of your heart” part wasn’t that literal. I am so sorry Marinette. I can’t imagine what you went through-“

Marinette placed a hand over Chloé’s, stopping her ramble. “It’s okay. I was like the other dreams I’ve been having but it-it hurt more because I had been able to separate myself from the other dreams, because I knew it wasn’t me that the events had happened to. But this was. I thew everyone in the dream and I guess that is making it harder to move past it. I will though. I know now that it wasn’t real,” she said, squeezing Chloé’s hand. “It helps having you here.”

Marinette noticed the blush that flushed Chloé’s cheeks and she was going to comment on it when Alya came into the kitchen. 

“The kwamis found a way to talk to the peacock kwami,” she said, looking down at Marinette’s hand still on Chloé’s before clearing her throat “I thought you would want to talk to them.”

Marinette nodded and missed the look shared between Chloé and Alya as she walked out the door. 

“Marinette!” Tikki called as she knelt down in front of the miraculous box to be at the same level as the kwamis. 

“Meet Duusu,” Tikki said as the other kwamis moved away to reveal a kwami resembling a peacock nibbling on a snack. 

“Hello there,” Marinette said softly and the kwami smiled. 

“You’re the ladybug holder?”

She nodded.

“It’s nice to meet you.”

“Thank you for helping with getting me away from Hawkmoth.”

“Did he hurt you?”

Duusu looked away as they shook their head, “not me, but he hurt my holder.”

“Who was your holder?”

“Emilie Agreste.”

Marinette’s eyes locked with Adrien’s as he realized what the kwami had said. She had forgotten that she hadn’t told Adrien outside of her dream.

“What?” He asked dumbstruck,

“Adrien…” Marinette started and his eyes welled with tears. 

“I saw her.”

“What?”

“She’s in Hawkmoth’s lair.”

“She’s-she’s”

“She’s alive.”

“How-why…What did he do to you!” Exclaimed Adrien, his eyes portraying the expression of a child who was abandoned by not one parent, but two. 

“I don’t know, she’s in some sort of chamber, it was reading off her vitals.”

“What’s wrong with her!” Adrien shouted as he moved closer to her and Marinette flinched away as she remembered the Adrien that had sided with Hawkmoth to save his mother.

“I don’t know Adrien. We’ll get her back. I promise.” 

Nino nodded in agreement as he placed a hand comfortingly on his friend’s shoulder. 

After a handful of minutes spent planning, the group took off towards the Agreste mansion. Adrien leading the team as the heroes flew across the rooftops of Paris. 

———————————————————————————————————————

She followed her friends as they stepped out of the automobile, all of them laughing as they secretly passed a flask around between them. When it came to her, she took a fake sip and moved it onto the next, hoping no one would notice but Charlotte raised an eyebrow at her and wagged a finger. 

“Come on Maggie! Would it kill ya to live a little?” She teased, and the rest of their friends laughed along with her. 

“I just think one of us should stay in her right mind so she can keep a watch on the others as they completely loose their senses.”

Charlotte rolled her eyes, “explain your prudish behavior however you want as long as you promise not be be such a downer once we’re inside.”

Maggie promised and the girls approached the door and Charlotte knocked once and then twice more after a dramatic pause. After a moment a slit in the door opened and Charlotte murmured “Jorum of skee” and the door opened wide. 

The music was loud and the room was crowded. Maggie might have walked straight back out the door they came in through if it wasn’t for Anne’s grasp on her hand. 

“Come on Maggie! Doesn’t this just make you feel alive?”

“Sure, until the police come and then not so much.”

“Is it really considered a crime if everyone is doing it?” Teased Charlotte. “Enough talking, that’s not why we came here,” she said handing Maggie a glass of champagne from a waiter’s tray as they passed by. “Now, down this and meet us on the dance floor,” she said as a gentleman approached them and pulled her towards the music with a grin. 

“Where did Elsie go off to?” Asked Maggie.

“Where do you think?” Anne responded, indicating with her empty hand towards a booth where Elsie sat curled tightly into a man’s side as he whispered into her ear and she giggled. 

Maggie smiled at the scene before her. When she had first met Elsie, they talked a lot about her fear of dying alone and without ever finding love. She had been seeing this guy for the past few weeks and talked about little else. 

Maggie was happy for her of course, but she couldn’t help but feel a little jealous. Maggie wasn’t looking for love per say, she was just open to the possibility. She definitely not as obsessed over boys as her other friends were. 

Soon Anne was whisked away to the dance floor, leaving Maggie alone with her ignored champagne glass in hand. She was fascinated with the scene of the speakeasy. The music, the dancing, the scandalous nature of it existing in the middle of prohibition. But while her friends seemed to be living their best lives, she couldn’t help but feel out of place. 

Charlotte spinner across the floor, Anne had her head buried into the chest of her dance partner. And Elsie was pressing an arch of kisses across her lover’s face between giggles. 

Maggie asked a passing waiter for the time and saw she had already been here for twenty minutes. That seemed long enough for her to have given it the old college try and proceeded to chase down her friends to tell them she was leaving when someone knocked into her from behind, sending her glass out of her hands and shattering onto the ground. 

Some of the shards of glass had scraped her feet and she winced. Looking down, she saw blood spilling from the cuts. 

“Watch where you’re going!” Came the voice of the person who ran into her. 

“I’m sorry,” she drawled in response, “but I’m pretty sure it was you that ran into me! So if anyone should be apologizing…” she whirled around to face the man “it should be you.”

The man looked taken aback that she had spoken back at him, his mouth gaped as he grappled for words. She didn’t intend to give him the chance. 

“Now if you’ll excuse me,” she said, calling over a waiter to point out the broken glass before moving towards the bathroom to clean her cuts but the man stopped her as she moved to pass by him. 

“You’re hurt,” he stated blandly. 

“And you’re perceptive,” she responded sarcastically. “Now if you would get out of my way please.”

“Let me help,” he interrupted. 

“I can do it myself”

“If you’re not going to let me act chivalrously, at least think of the other people here, your blood dripping on the floor could make someone slip.”

Maggie rolled her eyes but nodded, allowing him to wrap his arm around her waist to take weight off her foot as she limped to the bathroom. 

They paused before the door to the ladies. 

“Thank you, but I think I can take it from here.”

“Nonsense,” he said, shaking his head. “It will be much easier for me to clean the wounds than you.”

He didn’t wait for her to respond and dropped his arm to behind her knees as he lifted her into his arms and carried her bride style into the bathroom. A handful of of women were standing in front of the mirrors, refreshing their makeup and shrieked when they saw a man. Their eyes widened as they look him over, some even pointed at him in awe. 

“You’re-you’re”

“My apologies ladies, but my friend here is hurt and we need to use your washroom. Hopefully you don’t mind,” he said with a wink. 

Maggie rolled her eyes at the women’s swoons and waited for them to file out of the room before turning her head back to the man. 

“Now will you set me down please?”

“Gladly,” he responded as he sat her down gently on the counter before reaching for a hand towel and wetting it with water. 

“So do you always do this sort of thing?” She asked, breaking the silence. “Pass off making women dependent on you as chivalry?”

He rung water out of the towel and looked up at her questioningly. 

“Brave of you to talk to me like that. Not many people do.”

“What?” Maggie snorted. “Not used to women not swooning over your toxic masculinity?” 

He took a step closer to her. “You really don’t know who I am do you?”

“Should I?’ She asked blandly. 

He ignored her question and dabbed at her cuts with the cloth, making her wince and flinch her book back.

“Stay still” he commanded. 

“It stings okay?” She justified. “Distract me.”

Maggie caught the small smile he tried to suppress. “What would you like to talk about?”

“What brings you here? The alcohol?”

He shook his head, “I like the music.”

“Me too,” said Maggie, and the man met her gaze for a moment before going back to his task of cleaning the cuts. “My friends kept telling me about how they would dance until they dropped when they came here,” she continued. “I thought there weren’t being literal, but listening to the music, I understand what they’ve been saying. It’s enchanting in a way that you can’t help but want to dance until the sun comes up.”

“I didn’t see you dancing with anyone,” he commented. 

Maggie’s eyebrows raised, “were you watching me?”

He didn’t respond. 

“Maggie?” Came a call from outside the bathroom and she looked towards the door. 

“That would be my friends,” she said, looking back down at the man who wiped her foot one more time before standing. 

“All done. You should be good,” he said and held out a hand to help her off of the counter. 

“Thank you for your help.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Maggie!” Her name was shouted out again.

“I should go,” she said and headed for the door but was stopped by the man grabbing her hand. 

“Will you come here again?”

“I can be persuaded,” Maggie said with a smile. “Why?” 

“I thought you might be able to show me just how enchanting this music can be,” he said looking down at his feet. 

“Hmmmm, no.”

His eyes flashed back up to meet her gaze, “No?”

She pulled her hand out of his grasp. 

“I’m afraid I don’t like to dance with people without knowing their names, and since you are determined to remain a mystery…” she drawled off, grabbing the door handle. 

“Anthony, it’s Anthony,” the man responded and she smiled with her back still turned to him. She pulled the door open an inch and she heard Anthony take a step forward. 

“Wait, will I be seeing you?” 

Maggie turned back to face him, her hand still holding the door. 

“I suppose you’ll just have to find out.”

He nodded. 

“Wait a minute after I leave,” she continued. “Wouldn’t want to be scandalized by being seen leaving a restroom with a man,” she said with a laugh and left out the door, leaving Anthony’s mouth gaping. 

“There you are!” Exclaimed Charlotte. “We thought you might have left without telling us!”

“Sorry, I was in the restroom.”

“You must have been there for a while, we’ve been looking for you for a while-“ Elsie stopped speaking as the girls had turned towards the bathroom and saw Anthony exit. 

“Maggie!” Charlotte breathed. 

“If you let your mouth open any further your jaw is going to fall off.”

“Did you-isn’t he that-“

“I don’t know what you’re talking about” Maggie said, projecting innocence. “Let’s go, I want to have enough energy to come back tomorrow.”

“I thought you didn’t like these types of places,” said Anne. 

“Yeah, we basically had to drag you in here kicking and screaming,” added Elsie. 

Maggie looked over in the direction of where Anthony had been and saw that he was surrounded by a group of men, starting when she realized that he was looking at her too, his gaze fixed on her as he raised his glass and downed its contents. 

“Things change,” said Maggie distantly and shook her head, breaking her gaze away from Anthony’s. 

“Let’s go. 

Maggie felt betrayed by her body all of the net day, having to put significant effort into hiding her excitement about going back to the club that night. Finally after dinner they were pulling up to the speakeasy, her friends making fun of Elsie for her lovesick attitude. 

“You’re going to see him in just a few minutes, can you lighten up for a second at least?” Complained Charlotte. 

“I can’t help it! I miss him! I haven’t seen him all day!”

Maggie laughed along with the others. 

She wasn’t as far gone as Elsie, and she definitely wan’t in love with the guy, but she was intrigued for sure. There was something something about him that caught her attention and she wanted to chase after it. 

Walking into the bar, Maggie did her best not to actively search for him. If he was here great, if not, she convinced herself that she would be fine with that too. 

Like the night before, Elsie ran off with her boyfriend and Charlotte and Anne made a beeline for the dance floor. 

Maggie waited by the edge again, this time downing the glass of champagne. After a few minutes, she accepted that Anthony wasn’t here and moved to find a seat when a gentleman approached her and asked for a dance. 

“Your name?” She asked. 

“Nelson,” he responded, holding out a hand. 

“Maggie. And I do love this song,” she said before accepting his offered hand and letting him pull her onto the floor. 

The music was consuming, her heartbeat matching the tempo and singing along with the instruments.

Nelson spun her and her smile went as far as it could. He dipped her and her laughter rang across the dance floor, turning hands. 

“You sure are something,” her dance partner said in awe as he pulled her into him. 

“That she is,” came a voice behind them. Maggie spun around and found herself face to face with Anthony. 

“May I cut in?”

Maggie’s dance partner’s eyes widened as he looked over Anthony before grudgingly nodding and released his hold on her before stepping away. Anthony quickly moved into the now vacant space, placing a hand on the small of her back and pulling her into him. 

“I was starting to think you might never show up,” he said as he placed her hand in his and began to sway. 

“I didn’t see you when I came in,” she simply responded. 

“I was unfortunately detained, but I looked at you as soon as I walked in.”

“Oh,” she asked, fixing her gaze past his shoulder and on the band behind him.

“Your response to the music is intoxicating to watch.”

Maggie hoped he couldn’t feel how fast her heart was beating through their proximity. 

“It’s as if you become the music,” he said and she looked back to him to say some sort of sarcastic remark when he added “it’s beautiful.”

Maggie searched his eyes for any insincerity but found none. She cleared her throat. 

“Uh, thank you,” she whispered softly and he laughed. Maggie could feel the vibrations of his chuckles through how close they were. 

“You really don’t like being complimented, do you?”

Maggie rolled her eyes, “I am able to take a compliment, I just don’t fell the need to rely on other people’s comments to validate who I am.”

Anthony smiled, “there you are. I thought you might have gone soft since we met.”

She shook her head.

“Never. 

————————————————————————————————————————

Marinette’s eyes flashed open and saw Chloé looking down at her. 

“Finally! I thought you may never wake up!”

Marinette sat up and look around at their surroundings. 

“What happened?”

“We were on our way to go fight Hawkmoth when you just dropped.”

Bits and pieces of what happened before she fell over started to come back. “I didn’t even feel tired this time. There were no warning signs. What does that mean?”

“I don’t know. Where were you this time?”

“1920s in America, before the holder got their miraculous I think.”

“How Gatsby of you” Chloé joked, making Marinette laugh. 

“Where are the others?”

“Adrien didn’t want to wait for you to wake up before going to get this mom. When you dropped, we thought it was best not to move you and just leave one of us with you while the others kept going.”

“And you pulled the short straw?” Marinette teased.

“I volunteered,” Chloé stated, suddenly quite serious. 

Marinette met the gaze of the blonde hero. “You know Chloé, I’ve really noticed a change in you since you got the bee miraculous.”

“Good I hope?” Chloé chuckled. 

“Very good actually. You’ve really grown into yourself as a person.” 

“Thank you,” said Chloé, looking around at the ground.

“No, thank you,” Marinette said, placing a hand over Chloé’s. “I want you to know that I am really grateful for your help during these not great times and I need you to know that I see the progress you’ve made.”

Chloé pulled away her hand “Marinette, listen…”

“No no, let me finish. Before, I know you couldn’t stand me, hated me even.” 

“Marinette-“

“But I just want you to know that I am so glad that you have joined the team and am so grateful for how you have helped with fighting Hawkmoth and the akumas.”

“Marinette, I-“

“And I just hope that maybe you will start to consider me a friend as well as a teammate and I-“

Of all the strange things that had been happening, with her dreams, with being akumatized, fining Adrien’s mom and finding out who Hawkmoth is...Even with the craziness of all these things, Marinette would never have thought that Chloé, Chloé Bourgeois, who seemed devoted to ruining her life and to making sure her and Adrien wouldn’t be together, would kiss her. 

Marinette had been cut off mid-word by Chloé surging forward to press her lips to hers. After a moment, Chloé wheeled back, blushing profusely and muttering a string of apologies. 

“I’m so sorry. I don’t know what I was-I promise it won’t-I understand if you-“

Marinette didn’t know what made her do it, she definitely didn’t plan it. She just wanted Chloé to stop apologizing and without thinking she pulled the blonde back towards her by the collar of her suit. It took a moment for Chloé to recover from her surprise before she returned the kiss, shifting slightly to pull herself closer. 

After a moment, the two girls pulled away, both breathing heavily but not moving more than an inch or two from each other. 

“What…um….” Chloé started, her chest quickly rising and falling. 

“I don’t know.”

“But you-“

“I know”

“So why-“

“I don’t know”

“Do you-“

“I don’t know”

“But did you-“

“Yes”

“Are you ever going to let me finish?” Chloé muttered breathlessly. 

They were still close enough that Marinette could feel the blonde’s breath and she had to tear her eyes away from her lips to meet her gaze. 

“I just did,” she responded and the two laughed. 

Chloé’s eyes lost some of their glazed look as she seems to have some sort of internal struggle before pulling back further, moving so they had at least a foot between them.

“Marinette, look. I know that you and Adrien are-that you two have some kind of thing and I want you to know that I didn’t mean to-I mean, I don’t expect-“

Marinette held up a hand to stop her spiral. The past few days she’s had no idea what she was doing for the most part, and things had definitely just gotten a lot more confusing. 

“It’s okay. A lot of things have been happening lately and I’m probably way more confused now about things than I ever was, but I…felt something,” she said meeting Chloé’s gaze as her breath caught. 

“But I thought you and Adrien…”

“I did. I mean I do, it’s just all very complicated right now.”

Chloé nodded in agreement and laughed softly, “so what do we do now?”

Marinette stood and held out a hand to help Chloé up.

“Now, we go help our friends and stop Hawkmoth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Didn't plan the fic to go in this direction when I first started writing it, but I noticed the subtext about Chloé and Marinette I had been somewhat hinting at for the past few chapters and decided to go with it. We'll see where this goes.


	21. Dreams Come True

A fight was in full swing between heroes and akumas when Marinette and Chloé arrived at the Agreste mansion. Chloé threw herself into the fight immediately, going straight for the thick of things while Marinette hesitated. The scene before her looked too much like her dream. She struggled to remind herself that it hadn’t been real. She watched as Nino was thrown into the wall by Dark Owl. She flung herself towards the akuma, releasing the akuma and freeing the victim before they even knew she was there. Nino shot her a quick thanks and shielded the civilian as he moved them away from danger. 

Marinette ran towards the wave of akumas that were moving towards her. Swinging from her yoyo she broke as many akumatized objects as quickly as possible. 

Once she got the released civilians to safety, she came back to see a handful of paralyzed akumas. 

Chloé landed beside her with her miraculous beeping. “Got you a few presents. Can you take it from here?”

Marinette nodded and Chloé quickly squeezed her hand before promising to be back as soon as Pollen got something to eat. 

Marinette made quick of Chloé’s work, not knowing how long the paralysis would last. She was grouping the freed civilians when Alya came up to her, gesturing to the group of akumas Alya had illusioned to believe they were trapped. 

“Help these people to safety and I’ll take care of them?” Marinette asked and Alya nodded. 

“But what’s keeping Hawkmoth from akumatizing them again?”

One of the civilians stepped forward and the heroes recognized their friend Julika. 

“Don’t worry Rena Rouge, a lot of us were akumatized because Hawkmoth used Volpina to make us believe the heroes of Paris had been lost. Now that we know it was a lie, he won’t get us so easily.”

Marinette smiled, “Good. Don’t ever loose hope.”

The civilians nodded and went with Alya to escape the fight, leaving only Julika behind. 

“You need to get out of here,” Marinette warned, “it’s not safe.”

She shook her head. “I’m not leaving without Rose.”

Marinette looked around the battle until she spotted Princess Fragrance and nodded. She moved Julika to the gated entrance of the courtyard and told her to wait there while she went to free Rose’s akuma and send her this way. Julika hugged the hero and thanked her before moving to hide behind one of the fence’s columns. 

Marinette spotted Chloé return transformed again and go head to head with the Mime while she struggled with Princess Fragrance. 

The image of an arrow going through Queen Bee flashed in Marinette’s mind, distracting her enough for her to take a blow from Gorizilla who had come to help Princess Fragrance. Quickly, Marinette de-akumatized the akumas and sent Rose and Adrien’s bodyguard towards Julika, watching as the two girls embraced. 

After making sure they were gone, Marinette swung across the courtyard towards Chloé, but was smacked down by one of Anansi’s webs. Incapacitated by the webbing, she watched as the mime mimicked a bow and arrow, aiming it at Chloé. 

“No!” Marinette screamed and used her yoyo to break throw the web before harnessing all of her strength to shove Anansi off of her and release the akuma. 

Chloé had deflcted the first arrow, but her attention had been caught by Mr. Pigeon, leaving her back turned to the Mime, who was notching another arrow. 

Marinette launched herself and swung between Chloé and the akuma just as the arrow was released. 

Chloé heard a thumb behind her and whirled around, expecting an akuma but finding Ladybug laying at her feet. 

The courtyard had gone silent, all the akumas had stopped fighting and stood still with glowing masks across their faces. 

“Hawkmoth,” cooed the Mime, “Ladybug has fallen.”

No. No way. 

Chloé dropped down beside Marinette, turning her carefully to rest her on her back. Her eyes were closed and her chest was still. 

No no no. 

She pressed an ear to her chest and heard the faintest heartbeat. Marinette must have fallen into one of her unconscious states right after being hit by one of the Mime’s arrows. 

Alya raced over to her “What’s happening? It’s like all the akumas just stopped. Why-“ her words cut off when she saw Marinette’s unconscious form. She pressed a hand over her mouth. 

“Is she-“

Chloé brushed Marinette’s hair out of her face and she shook her head, eyes tearing up. 

“She was shot by one of Mime’s arrows, but I heard a heartbeat .I think she’s in one of her states. We won’t know the damage until she wakes up.”

Nino close that moment to race back through the gate. 

“The civilians are same, time to kick some akuma butt- hey. What’s going on?” he asked, looking around at the akumas who still had lowing masks across their faces, watching the scene before them silently. 

“Guys? Guys! There you are! What’s with all the-“ he stopped beside Alya who silently intertwined their hands together. 

“What do we do? We need-“ his voice cracked and his poised demeanor failed for a moment. “We need to get her out of here. Where’s Chat?”

The others looked around until they spotted their feline dressed friend, who stood in front of Hawkmoth. 

The heroes moved to help him when they noticed their postures. It looked like the two could have been an everyday conversation. 

Nino broke away from the other two heroes who stayed with Marinette while he approached the two cautiously. 

“Chat? What’s going on?”

His best friend didn’t look back at him, but Hawkmoth did, raising his eyebrows before stating, “No need for such formalities. It’s nice to see you Nino. Wish it could be under better circumstances. 

The miraculous holder’s eyes widened and he moved to look himself over in case his transformation had faded without him noticing but Hawkmoth held up a hand. 

“Worry not, your transformation remains intact. My son was just filling me in.” 

“Son.”

“Yes. I know who Chat Noir is, who all of you are.”

“Chat-“

“He has my mom Nino.”

“Dude-“

“I made a deal.”

“Deal?”

“The miraculouses for you lives,” Hawkmoth stated as if he hadn’t just said he was willing to kill them.

“No way in hell. Adrien does not speak for all of us.”

“Man, listen. He says he needs the miraculous to save my mom.”

“And you trust him?! Are you listening to anything he just said?”

“I trust him. So will Marinette. Where is she?”

“Convenient how you only tell him what will benefit you,” Nino spat at Hawkmoth.

“Yes, I do apologize for Mrs Dupain-Cheng.”

“What are you talking about?” Adrien demanded.

“One of his akumas shot her in the chest and now she won’t wake up.”

“What?!” Adrien exclaimed and followed Nino’s gaze to where Chloé and Alya sat beside a motionless Marinette. His expression was pained as he turned back towards his father. 

“You said no one would be hurt.”

“It was unavoidable son. She got in the way of me trying to save your mother. You understand don’t you?”

“You’re sick. Come on Adrien, let’s go.” Nino said, grabbing his arm but Adrien pulled away. “What are you doing?”

“He’s right Nino.”

“I’m sorry? I’m sure I hear you wrong because my best friend would never be okay with something like this.”

“It’s my mom, Nino. I’ll do anything to get her back.”

“Even if it means siding with Hawkmoth? Have you forgotten how many people he’s hurt? He akumatized almost all our friends, not to mention he’s terrorized Paris for the past year!” 

“I haven’t forgotten, but I now understand why he had to.”

“Had to? He just tried to kill Marinette! This isn’t you man. Think about what you’re doing.” 

“I am. I’m saving my mom,” Adrien said before calling for a cataclysm. “Now, give me the miraculouses or I’ll have to take them from you.” 

Nino held up his hand in mock surrender before shouting, “Now!” 

Before Adrien and his dad knew what had happened, Alya used her power of illusion to make her, Nino, Chloé, and Marinette disappear. 

“Find them son.”

“Yes, Hawkmoth. But first, you will take me to my mom.”


	22. Thieves in London

She had been on her way to the countryside along with the rest of the children in London when she snuck off right as the train began to move. Staying out of sight, she used back alleys to avoid soldiers until she reacher her destination. It had been a beautiful home only a week ago, that was when a bomb had landed and obliterated the house across the street completely, taking the street facing side of this house with it. She knocked on the door and laughed silently before taking a single step to the right and walking past the door that was the only still standing part of the front of the house. 

“Hello?” She called, “Anyone here?”

“It’s not nice to trespass girl,” a voice responded from behind her and she yelped. 

“Not funny!”

“A little funny.”

She turned around and hit the shoulder of the person behind her a bit too hard. 

“Ow! Is that any way to treat your boyfriend?”

“I don’t have a boyfriend.”

“Then what would you call this?” The boy asked, pulling her into him.

“A distraction.”

“Is that all I am to you?”

She nodded playfully as he closed the remaining distance between them.

“I’ve missed you Martha.”

“And I you, Arnold.”

“Arnold?” He groaned. “You know I hate my full name.”

“But I love it dear Arnie,” a new figure snorted as they walked into the room. 

“A pleasure as always Connie.”

The girl bowed dramatically before being tackled by Martha with such strength that it sent them tumbling to the floor, sending both into a laughing fit.

“I thought you might have been sent back into the countryside when you didn’t show yesterday!” Connie exclaimed. 

“Got put on the train and everything. Just barely got off before it started moving. You miss me?”

“Always,” Connie crooned, and the two started laughing again. 

“You know, you’ve never told me why you ran away and came back to London,” Arnold prompted. 

The two girls sobered up quickly. 

“Lets say that being in the middle of a war zone is sometimes better than the places they’re sending kids, especially if you’re a girl,” Connie said.

Arnold spotted Martha absentmindedly trace the scars on her wrists before readjusting her scarf to make sure it was covering her neck and it was then that it clicked. Why she never showed her neck or why she sometimes flinched when he touched her. 

He wanted to hunt down and kill whoever did this to her. 

“I’m so sorry Martha.”

She nodded. “We can only move forwards and try our best to keep it from happening to anyone else.”

Connie agreed and pulled the girl into a tight embrace. 

“Please tell me we’re interrupting something,” came a teasing voice as two more figures entered the room.

Martha pulled away from Connie to say some hellos. 

“I didn’t want you to stop on my account. Please, go back to whatever you were doing.”

“Neil you pervert,” the second figure interjected. 

“Take that back,” he said in mock offense. 

She shook her head. 

“Then I suppose I’ll just have to prove you wrong,” Neil said as he used his hand cradling her neck to pull her into a passionate kiss. 

“Ugh,” Connie groaned, “I’m surrounded by lovesick puppy dogs. If you’re quite finished Annette?”

The two ignored her and Neil purposefully pulled his girlfriend closer into him. 

“We didn’t come here to-“

A large noise sounded not too far away and the remains of the house shook, bits of dust and stone falling around them.

“It’s early isn’t it?”

“That sounded close.”

“That scared me.”

“What did you expect? A warning before the bombings start?” 

“Guys, focus.”

“Right, sorry.” 

They grouped together and exchanged information on what they had scavenged since they last met, food, supplies, vacated homes. 

“An old rich couple fled to the country the other day, left nearly everything,” Neil announced, “probably not that many bedrooms, but there’s plenty of food and supplies.”

“Good find,” Martha praised. “I know a small group of siblings that will do perfect there.”

“Can’t this one be for us?” Neil pleaded, earning a shove from Annette.

“Our,” he corrected, “our responsibility.”

“A very nice sentiment,” came a voice and everyone jumped and whirled around to see the man now standing in the doorway. 

“Apologies sir,” Arnold spoke up, “we thought the house was abandoned.”

“I’m sure it is,” the man said, kicking a piece of fallen ceiling across the floor, “that’s not why I’m here.”

“Then why are you?” Connie questioned. 

“I’ve watched you all for a while now, and I have an offer for you.”

“What kind of offer,” Martha asked, stepping forward a bit so she was in front of the others, hands at the ready to make a quick fist in case a fight was in order. 

“How would you all like to be the heroes to save London?” the man asked, and lifted the box in his arms towards them. 

“Who are you?”

“I am called the Guardian, and these are called miraculouses,” he said lifting the box to reveal the objects inside. 

———————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

“The hell are you doing here?”

“Guys let me explain.”

“Explain?! Bro you went full dark side!”

“No I didn’t.”

“What do you mean you didn’t. You sided with Hawkmoth you save your mom, right and wrong be damned!”

“No, I just needed it to seem that way.”

“The Hell does that mean.”

“Nino, let him explain.”

“I agree, let him talk.”

“Thank you Chloé.”

“Don’t thank me yet. One wrong move and I’ll paralyze you faster than you can say hairball.”

“Fair enough.”

“Fine. Seems like I’m outnumbered on this. Give us one good reason to trust you.”

“Will this do?” Adrien asked as he held out a hand to reveal Hawkmoth’s miraculous. 

“Is that-“

“Yes.”

“How?”

“By making him think I sided with him. I waited until father released his transformation and then used my cataclysm to make sure he would give it up to me.”

“But what about your mom?”

Adrien bit his lip before responding. “I don’t think my mom would want to come back as a result of people getting hurt, and I don’t either. We’ll find another way.”

Nino clapped him on the back, “I knew you weren’t evil! Never doubted you dude.”

Adrien rolled his eyes.

“Wait, where is Hawkmoth-your dad now?”

“When I took his miraculous, all of the control he had over akumas broke and they were all released. One of the akumatized victims was the head of police. I turned my father over to them.”

“You okay?” Chloé asked, placing a hand on his shoulder.

He nodded. “I know that he’s my father technically, but he hasn’t felt like one for a long time. Now that I know what he’s done to my mom and Marinette, I have no problem with him being locked up for a long time.”

He paused, looking around at all the solemn faces before asking, “How is she?”

It was Chloé who responded. “She’s the same. We can’t tell whether her state is because of injury or one of her dreams.”

“It hasn’t healed? I was hoping that once the Mime was gone the wound would go too.”

“We don’t know what to do Adrien.”

“Maybe we do,” Nino interjected. “You said something about your dad needing all the miraculouses to bring back your mom?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Give me a bit,” Nino said quickly before grabbing the miraculous book and taking off into the downstairs bakery.

“What is he…”

“I’ve learned just to let him do his thing,” Alya said with a weak grin. “He’ll tell us eventually.”

She looked towards the stairs Nino had gone down. “I think I’m going to get something to eat for me and Trixx, you guys want to send your kwamis with me?”

Chloé and Adrien nodded, both laughing lightly at how quickly the kwamis flew down the stairs, especially Plagg who squealed “CHEEEEEEEEEESSSEEE!!!!” All the way down. 

Once the others were gone, Adrien followed Chloé to go sit by where they had laid Marinette down. 

“I hate seeing her like this,” Adrien admitted. 

“Me too,” Chloé agreed, brushing a strand of hair away from where it had fallen over Marinette’s masked eyes. 

Adrien was surprised by the gesture. He looked up at Chloé, examining her expression and finding an unusual amount of softness in her eyes. He hadn’t realized how much Chloé had grown to like Marinette. They used to not even be able to stand each other. He watched at Chloé trailed a finger down Marinette’s arm before realizing what she was doing and blushing. 

Did Chloé- 

He opened his mouth to ask her when Nino came parading up the stairs with the book in his arms with Alya following behind him. 

“I think I figured it out!”

“Figured out what Nino?” Adrien asked. 

“How to heal Marinette AND stop her dreams!”

“How?”

“You’re dad had the right idea, but he was going about it wrong. We need to use the combined power of the main seven miraculouses to basically restart her heart. Adrien, you were right that the injury from the Mime should have healed already since the akuma was freed. The problem is that in her state, she’s unable to heal herself, and because of the fatal injury, her body is refusing to wake her up.”

It made sense in a crazy way. 

“What do we need to do?” Chloé asked. 

“Not us, the kwamis. See, Hawkmoth wanted to force the miraculouses to heal Adrien’s mom, but the kwamis were originally one force before being split apart by the miraculouses. The only way it will work is if the kwamis agree to combine once more, unforced.”

“Even if we can get the six kwamis to agree, what are we going to do about Tikki? Marinette is still transformed.”

“See, that’s where it gets tricky,” Nino said, flipping through the book.

“That wasn’t the tricky part yet?” Alya asked worriedly. 

“Adrien is right that we can’t do it with Marinette transformed. Which means we will have to force the release of the transformation.”

“But if the wound isn’t healing…” Chloé muttered. 

“Then the Ladybug suit is the only thing slowing down the wound,” Alya finished. 

“I know,” Nino said solemnly. “Which means we will only have minutes at most to convince Tikki and and use the miraculouses to save Marinette.”

“I say we do it.” Alya said. “She’s my best friend.”

The others nodded and Nino opened the hatch to call up the kwamis from the kitchen before explaining the situation.

“So?” Adrien asked.

The kwamis looked at each other, having some sort of silent conversation before they agreed. 

“We’ll do it. For Marinette,” Plagg announced. 

Nino nodded, and flipped through the miraculous book for a second before moving to stand over Marinette. 

“We have to be quick,” he said, reaching for the earrings. 

“Three…two…one…” he counted down and removed the earrings.


	23. I Remember You

After Nino removed the earrings, Marinette’s Ladybug suit disappeared and revealed her civilian clothes. For a moment, she looked safe and unharmed, then blood began to seep through her shirt at an alarming rate. 

“Oh god, it won’t stop!” Alya cried, placing a towel to the wound and applying pressure. It was soaked with blood in moments. 

“That’s because the Ladybug suit and powers o the miraculous were the only thing sealing the wound!” Tikki exclaimed. 

“We were worried that might be the case,” Nino commented worriedly. 

“She’ll die in minutes,” Tikki said with tearful eyes. 

“The holders have a plan,” Plagg announced and Nino gave as quick of a rundown as possible. 

“Please Tikki,” Chloé pleaded. “I know it is a lot to ask, but please, help save Marinette.”

“Marinette may be the best holder I’ve had in a long time,” Tikki responded. “I would do it in an instant to save her, but there’s a reason the powers were split apart and distributed to us kwamis in the first place. The power once belonged to an all powerful being who eventually was corrupted by the power. It took everything the Order of Guardians had to take the powers and split them among the kwamis. At first, there were only seven of us, but even that was too much power for us. After several disasters, more kwamis were given powers so that there are now around twenty of us.” 

“When will you let the dinosaur thing go?!” Plagg exclaimed. 

“You’re saying we’ll need EVERY kwami? The book only mentioned the seven,” Nino said. 

Tikki nodded. “The guardians never wanted anyone to know everything that would be needed to restore all the powers into one form. One of the kwamis who has influence over memory ensured that I was the only one to keep this information.”

Alya made a worried yell as blood started to pool even more rapidly around Marinette. “Guys hurry!” 

“You all have agreed of your own will to save Marinette?” Tikki asked the other kwamis surrounding her. 

They nodded. 

“Then it’s time to ask the others,” she stated as they dived one by one into the miraculous box, phasing through the lid and into the kwami world. 

Nino and Adrien looked around at each other, then back down at the box. 

“Remember the time where that would have been weird to see?” Nino asked, “Now we live in a world of little god like creatures that give people powers.”

Chloé moved to sit next to Alya and replaced her hands with her own so Alya could have a break. The momentary lack of pressure sent an unnerving amount of blood pooling down marionette’s sides. 

Chloé kept back a sob at how pale Marinette and become. She could freak out after they saved Marinette. She couldn’t die, she wouldn’t let her, not after they had-whatever that was. She wasn’t entirely sure what it meant for Marinette, but she sure as hell wanted the chance to find out. 

A wosh noise sounded as the kwamis resurfaced, bringing along more than a dozen new kwamis. 

“So?” Adrien asked hesitantly.

“They have all agreed to save Marinette kid,” Plagg said Adrien let out a sigh of relief. 

“What do we do now?” Alya asked. 

“First, all the miraculouses must be placed on her,” Tikki stated and the and the holders went to it as Tikki explained the next steps to Nino since the kwamis would disappear once the ritual was in movement. 

Marinette was like a decorated Christmas tree with all the miraculouses covering her body, from the Ladybug earrings, bracelets, necklaces, rings, pins, combs, even a belt. 

“Step back Chloé,” Nino said and she hesitantly removed her blood stained hands and stood away from Marinette. 

“Miraculouses,” Nino began. “Keer terug naar één.” 

One by one, the kwamis flew into their objects until every last one and vanished. 

Marinette’s body remained still for a moment, then began to convulse as the miraculous objects spread and a light engulfed her form. 

The heroes shielded their eyes as the light brightened until it was unbearable to look at. Soon they could hear sizzling sounds and the whine of light bulbs before they shattered and sent shards of glass across the room. After a minute, the burning noises were silenced by a cold gust of of wind that swept through the room. When the heroes opened their eyes, the blinding light had disappeared, leaving the room in darkness. 

The huddled group of heroes separated cautiously. 

“What happened?” Adrien asked. 

“Did it work?” Said Chloé and Alya whipped around to face the bed. 

“Oh my-“ she exclaimed, and the others quickly mimicked her actions. 

There was a burning outline of Marinette’s body from where she had been a minute ago. 

“Where did she go?” Alya asked. 

“Is she-“ Nino started, but was interrupted by the weak of a floorboard behind them and everyone spun to face the noise. Stood before them was a figure facing the window that seemed to literally be glowing. 

“Is that-“

The figure turned towards them and they all gasped. While the figure was glowing, it was still recognizably Marinette, but she looked almost angelic. 

Her hair was out of its normal pigtails, and seemed to float around her in an undetectable wind. Her skin that had been sickly pale only moments before now, looked like it was radiating starlight. Her blood stained clothes were replaced with something similar to the miraculous suits, but resembled more of a breathable armor that looked as if it could block a train coming at her like it was nothing while appearing less than an inch thick. Her eyes shone purely white with any trace of her normal blue gone. What was most noticeable however, was the fact that she was floating about an inch above the floor. 

Adrien was the first to speak. “Marinette?” He asked, taking a step forward. Her gaze zeroed in on him and he froze his movements. 

“Ki vagyok én?” She spoke, her voice sounding as lovely as bells while simultaneously as strong as a symphony. 

“What language was that?” Alya questioned and her best friend’s gaze shifted to her. 

“Hvar er ég?” She asked in what sounded like a different language. 

“Marinette?” Nino asked. 

“Hvem er du?” She asked, the language changing again. 

“Marinette, are you okay?” Adrien asked. 

“¿Quién soy?” She demanded. 

“I don’t understand,” Adrien mumbled confused. 

“That was Spanish I think,” Chloé said hesitantly. “My family went there for a summer, let me see if I can remember any…” 

“Qui es-tu?” Marinette interrupted. 

“Wait, that was French,” Nino noted. “Marinette, are you alright?”

She seemed to understand.

“Who are you?” She asked again, her glow flaring slightly. 

“I’m Nino, this is Adrien, Alya, and Chloé”

“Who am I?”

“You’re Marinette…”

“Marinette,” she repeated, seeming to test out the name. 

“Where am I?” 

“We’re in your room.”

“My room,” she stated back, looking around the room. Her gaze caught on the photos plastered on her wall, many of them being of her and Alya. She turned back to them. 

“Alya,” she said, her eyes searching until they landed on her best friend, who had tears in her eyes. 

“I remember,” she said. 

“Remember? Remember what?” Alya asked. 

“I remember you. Anne.”

“No, my name is Alya, remember? We’re best friends!”

“Yes,” Marinette said smiling, “and we have been for many lifetimes.”

“Marinette. Maybe you need to lie down,” Nino said, and her attention switched to him. 

“I remember you too, Neal, Nathaniel, no, it’s Nino now right?”

Nino could only nod and Marinette shifted her gaze to Adrien. 

“I remember you.” 

“Marinette, you need to rest.”

“No,” she said and her glow flared again.

“Marinette, you were badly injured by one of Hawkmoth’s-“

“Hawkmoth,” she interrupted, and she shone even brighter. “Where is he?” She demanded. 

“He’s gone.”

“How can you be sure?”

“ We took his miraculous Marinette,” Chloé spoke up. “He can’t hurt you anymore, he won’t be hurting anyone.”

Marinette’s glow stopped flaring, but was still uncomfortably bright to look at.

“Hey, look at me,” Chloé said, smiling softly as she lifted a hand up, her palm facing her. “We won, Marinette. There’s nothing to worry about.”

Marinette kept her gaze locked on hers as she hesitantly moved forward until her hand mirrored Chloé’s and were a mere centimeter from touching. 

“See,” Chloé said. “You’re fine. We’re all fine, and Hawkmoth is gone.”

“I remember you,” Marinette whispered as their hands touched. 

When Chloé came to, she was on the ground with the worried faced of Alya, Nino, and Adrien looking down at her.

“What happened?”

“Marinette sent some sort of wave of energy into you when you two touched…you blacked out.”

Chloé looked down at her hand and winced at the blistering flesh that burned her palm. 

Marinette. Chloé could only imagine about what Marinette was thinking, she kew how much she hated to hurt people.

Chloé looked around the room but found is missing one glowing Marinette. 

“Where is she?”

“We don’t know,” Nino responded. “After she hurt you, she stared talking in a different language again, then left.”

“Left?”

“Yeah,” Adrien continue, she backed away a few steps and seemed to turn into living shadow, then vanished.”

“Well that’s…new.”

“All of this is new, we have no idea what powers she has, or is she can control them.”

“Wait, you said she started talking in another language. What did she say?”

“Arreglaré esto.” Alta said, trying to mimic the pronunciation as best as she could. “Do you know what it means?

“Yeah, it’s Spanish again. It means to fix I think.”

“Fix?” Adrien asked. “Fix what?”

A blinding light flooded the room. When it faded, the others looked around for Marinette, but she hadn’t returned. 

“What was that?” Alya asked. 

“Uh, guys?” Nino said, pointing towards the window where the streets were now filled with the citizens of Paris. 

“Marinette brought them all back.” 

Looking around further, the heroes could see that all the damage Hawkmoth and his akumas had caused had been been reversed and the city was back to its regular self. 

“She did this?”

“How powerful is she?”


	24. A Light in Darkness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Only a few more chapters left!

The week after they defeated Hawkmoth and made Marinette the most powerful person on earth went by at the speed of a snail. They spent most of it trying to explain to their parents where they had been the past week, which was difficult enough, but not as bad as explaining to Marinette’s parents that they had no idea where she was. Missing posters had since been plastered across the city. They told the truth about none of them having seen Marinette, at least not in person, but she had been anything but quiet.

After repairing any damage the akumas and Hawkmoth had caused to Paris and returned all the citizens, she had moved on. In the past week, accounts had spread across the globe describing a glowing Ange who bit by bit was repairing the world. News articles in almost every country praised and investigated the mystical hero who rebuilt entire cities that had been destroyed by earthquakes overnight. Hundreds of people had come forward claiming they had been saved from floods by an angel who flew them to safety. There were groups of scientists working to explain how a tornado could have been chased away. Videos had been gone viral of a tsunami seeming to be held back by an invisible wall made by a figure floating hundreds of feet in the air. 

“Found another one,” Nino said as he flipped around his computer to show an article to the others. 

“Are you serious?” Alya said in awe. 

The article had the headline, “Global Warming Solved By The World’s Guardian Angel?”

Reading the article, melting glaciers in Antartica had returned to a healthy size and no longer showed any signs of damage. 

“Check this one out,” Adrien said before reading out part of an article. “Guardian angel saves hundreds of girls being transported across the ocean by sex traffickers. All the girls have been returned to their families or a save environment and the traffickers woke up in the custody of the proper authorities with no memory of how they got there.” 

“She’s amazing,” Nino breathed, letting out a heavy breath and the others nodded in agreement. 

“Has anyone heard from Chloé?” Alya asked. “Has she found out anything yet?”

Adrien shook his head. Chloé had been stuck at her house ever since the akumas had been released. Her father had confined her to their apartment for her safety as he had put it. Her mother had made it worse by agreeing with him for what felt like the first time. 

“Last we spoke, she said she was gong to try to use her father’s access as mayor Paris to see if she could find anything about what governments are saying about Marinette that hadn’t been made public, like if they see her as a threat.”

“I’m sure it’s not going to be anything like that,” Alya stated. “I mean, who would have a problem with someone literally fixing the planet?”

“People who don’t want it to be safer,” said Nino. “Marinette’s gone after a lot of bad guys, the ones left will probably want her out of play.”

“I hadn’t thought of it that way,” Alya murmured. “Now I’m just as worried as Chloé,” she said with wide eyes. “Maybe I should go and see if she needs any help.”

“Chloé does seem to care a lot doesn’t she?” Adrien huffed under his breath, not realizing he had said it aloud and the other two looked over at him. 

“We all do…” Alya said cautiously. 

“Yeah, Chloé and Marinette buried the hatchet so to speak,” Nino added. “Why wouldn’t she be worried about her.”

“I can’t be the only one who sees it.”

“Sees what?”

“That what Chloé feels for Marinette is more than friendship.”

“What?” Nino said at the same time Alya said “oh that.”

“You knew?” Adrien asked.

“I’m not blind,” Alya said. “It’s pretty obvious.”

“Mind blown,” Nino whispered to himself.

“What do I do?”

“What do you mean what do you do?”

“Well Chloé likes Marinette…”

“Yeah?”

“Well I like Marinette too, and we kind of started something-but with everything that happened, it was put on hold and-“

“And what?”

“Well, what if Marinette likes Chloé too?”

“Then she does.”

“Yeah but-“

“It’s up to Marinette man,” Nino interrupted. 

“I know, I know.”

“Good,” Nino stated. “Now let’s get back to it because none of this even matters if we can’t find her.”

Nino and Adrien nodded and shifted their gaze back to their screens when Alya’s phone rang. 

“It’s Chloé, maybe she found something,” she said as she answered. After being quiet for a moment she said “We’re on our way” before closing her phone.

“What as that?”

“Chloé’s dad got an alert that a train outside of Paris fell off the rails and crashed.”

“Oh my gosh.”

“Yeah it looks bad. Chloé snuck out of her house during all of the chaos and is on her way there.”

“Why?”

“Well she figures that if there was something that would bring Marinette back to Paris, it would be this.”

“She’s right, let’s go.”

————————————————————————————

The scene was terrible. A tree had fallen over the tracks and a train had plowed right into it at enough speed that caused it to tip and crash on its side. 

When the heroes got there, fire trucks were attempting to put out the fires that had spread across the different cars of the train and first responders were helping passengers out of the train.

“Where’s Chloé?” Nino asked. 

“There!” Alya said, pointing towards an ambulance where the soot covered blonde hero was holding a crying child in her arms. The others raced over to her. 

“Her mother threw her out of the train when it started to crash,” she explained softly as to not disturb the child she held comfortingly. 

“Any sign of Marinette?”

“Not yet-“ she started but was interrupted by a flash of light. 

At first they thought it was another explosion from the train, but as the blinding light dimmed and disappeared, a figure appeared in its wake. 

“Marinette,” the heroes murmured. 

She was glowing like all the articles had described, and while she lacked the wings often associated with angels, she was levitating above the ground several inches, giving her the look of gliding across the ground. 

She didn’t stand still for long, and started moving towards the train. With a wave of her hand, a gust of wind came from nowhere, extinguishing all of the remaining fires on the train. 

Marinette next moved right up next to the train and seemed to see past the metal as she told the medics, police and firemen how many people were still on the train and where. 

Once they set to work, she called over some of teh medics to grab a stretcher before disappearing into the shadows again and reappearing with a severely injured passenger in her arms. 

The others watched as the passenger whispered to Marinette. After the woman was settled onto the stretcher, Marinette looked around until her gaze fell on the heroes. Not knowing what else to do, Nino waved awkwardly in response to her stare and she disappeared again before dematerializing right in front of them. 

“Marinette?” Alya asked cautiously. 

She ignored her, eyes set on the child in Chloé’s arms.

“Is this Dana?” She asked. Her voice recognizable but melodic. Chloé nodded, looking down at the now sleeping child in her arms before her gaze returned to Marinette who continued. “Her mother is looking for her, she’s been injured quite badly, but she’ll be glad her daughter is okay.” 

The others just stared in awe at the formal manner in which she spoke to them. 

“I’ll show you to her. This way,” Marinette said, gesturing for Chloé to follow. 

“I’ll be right back,” the blonde hero said before rushing after the glowing Marinette. 

The others watched silently as they went. 

“What was that?” Adrien asked. 

“We talked about this remember?” Nino asked. “When Marinette talked in all those languages, we thought the powers might have made her a bit more than our Marinette.”

“Especially when she called us names of past holders.”

Nino nodded. 

“So she’s maybe having trouble distinguishing between lives of past holders and her own?” Adrien asked.

“I don’t know”

“You don’t know? I thought you were the guy who knew everything! Especially with how much you cling to that book!” Adrien lashed out. 

“Hey! We know the past few days have been stressful but we can’t start fighting amongst ourselves. We need to be there for Marinette guys!” Alya begged. “She needs us.”

“Some more than others it seems,” Adrien mumbled and the others followed his gaze just in time to see Marinette grab Chloé’s hand before they both disappeared into shadows.


	25. Worldwide

Marinette led Chloé to where Dana’s mother was being treated by medics and watched as their tearful reunion as they were put in an ambulance and sent to the hospital. 

“You saved her mother,” Chloé said, not in the form of a question as much as in awe. 

Marinette’s gaze followed the ambulance until it was out of sight. 

“How did you know she was in there?” Chloé prompted. 

“I heard her.” 

“I’m surprised she had enough energy to scream, the smoke must have been filling her lungs pretty quick with how smoky the train cars were.” 

“She was unconscious,” Marinette said. 

“But-then how did you hear her?”

“I could hear her heartbeat.”

“From all the way outside the train?!”

She simply nodded. 

“How-“

“One of the miraculous’s powers.”

“So, you have every power the-“

“Yes.”

“That must be overwhelming.”

Chloé spotted a look of surprise flash across Marinette’s features, but she still didn’t turn to look at her.

“I suppose it is,” she said softly after a moment. 

Chloé spotted a crack in marionette’s cool facade and decided to cautiously pick at it. 

“What sort of powers do you have?”

“All the ones that the main seven had, as sell as those that belonged to the other miraculouses. I also seem to have powers that are only awakened when the kwamis have joined together into one form.”

“Wow,” Chloé said, her mind spinning at the possibilities. “You can fly, you have super speed, super strength, super senses, not to mention you are LITERALLY glowing. What else can you do?”

“I don’t think there’s anything I can’t do.”

Chloé couldn’t decide whether to be amazed or horrified. 

“So…you can…”

“I remember you,” Marinette burst out, interrupting her. 

“What?”

“I remember you,” Marinette said finally turning to look at her. “There’s so much that’s different now, everything is so loud, things that used to matter don’t anymore. But you, I see you, I remember you.”

“What does that mean?”

Marinette’s eyes flashed white. When she came to and her eyes returned to normal she stumbled back a few steps. 

“What was that?” Chloé asked worriedly. 

“A plane is crashing.”

Chloé quickly looked up, but saw nothing but blue sky around them.

“I don’t see anything…”

“Not here,” Marinette said, shaking her head. “In America.”

“America?”

“I have to go.”

“Wait! You can’t just leave! What about-“

“Come with me.”

“What.”

“I said, come with me.”

“I don’t-“

“I have a duty to help wherever I can, and I want you to come with me.”

“We’ll never get there in time”

“You’d be surprised,” Marinette said with a soft smile. “I can get there pretty fast.”

“I suppose I can see if I can use my father’s helicopter and meet you-“

“No need,” Marinette said, holding out her hand. “Just hold on tight and don’t let go.”

“What-ah!” Chloé shouted in surprise as she looked down to see the bottom half of her body changing to smoke until she disappeared entirely. 

————————————————————————————

When Chloé came to, she was in the middle of a field, pieces of what looked like a cargo hold burning around her. 

The plane! 

She sat up slowly, making sure nothing was broken as she looked around. 

“Oh good, you’re awake!”

Chloé whipped around and found the owner of the voice to be a small child. 

Dazed, she asked “What happened?”

The little girl smiled wildly as she relayed the recent events. 

“From what we’ve been told, there was a glitch that had two airplanes flying right towards each other. With how foggy it was up in the clouds, the pilots weren’t alerted until the other plane was right in front of us! In just enough time our pilot flipped us so we didn’t all blow up, but the other plane’s wing tore through the bottom of our plane. They lost a wind and we lost an engine!”

“And then you crashed?”

The kid shook their head. “Everyone as freaking out, and the plane was dropping really fast! That was when you and the angel showed up! She had you make sure everyone was in their seats and buckled while she softened the decent by forming an air tunnel that kept the plane from going down too fast!”

“Then…what happened…” Chloé trailed off, gesturing to the burning plane around her. 

“There were two planes remember? The angel helped us as much as she could before she had to go and save the other plane. We all had just enough time to get away from the plane before the engine exploded! It was like fireworks! but…bad fireworks.”

“The other plane?”

The little girl shrugged. “We saw it go down a ways that way,” she said, gesturing towards the forrest surrounding the field. “Some people went to see if anyone needed help, I stayed here to look after you.”

“When did I…”

“The landing was a bit rough and a suitcase fell out and smacked you right on the head. My dad had to carry you out.”

“Remind me to thank him.”

“Where’s Mari-the angel now?”

“She never came back from helping the other plane.”

Chloé tried her best not to jump to the worst conclusions.

“You showed up with the angel. Do you know her?” The kid asked excitedly. 

“Yeah, I do.”

“Are you friends?”

“Well, yes, but we’re also-it’s complicated.”

“How so?”

“You wouldn’t under-“

“You like the angel, like, like like her. Don’t you”

“How did you-“

“People always think kids aren’t smart because we’re small, but I think kids are way smarter than adults most of the time.”

“But, how did you know I-“

“I have eyes! I saw how you looked at her on the plane and how worried you are about her now.”

Chloé fell into a coughing fit and the girl handed her a water bottle from her backpack. 

“You’re a good kid.”

“My name is Hadley,” she said, pausing before asking “Do you love the angel?”

Chloé spat out the water she had in her mouth. 

“What?!”

“Do you love her? I know I would! She had powers and saves people!”

Chloé thought for a moment before saying quietly “I think I might.”

Hadley squealed and clapped her hands. 

“Have you told her?”

Chloé shook her head. “I’m not even sure how she feels.”

:Well you got to tell her~ Or else she’ll never know how you feel and that’s not fair to either of you.”

She was right. Chloé moved to her feet, swaying for a moment before she regained her balance. 

“You say the plane went that way?”

Hadley nodded. “You can’t go alone! What if you have a concussion or something! I’ll come with you!”

“Oh no no no. You need to stay with your parents.”

“I was only with my dad and he went after the other plane! Plus I want to meet the angel!”

Chloé looked around, and upon seeing that no one seemed to be looking for the girl she sighed. 

“Alright, you can come. You’ll be useful in showing me the way.”

Hadley grinned wildly and grabbed Chloé’s hand. 

“This way!” She shouted as she dragged the blonde behind her. 

“Where was your plane heading Hadley? Where are we?”

“You mean you don’t know?”

“Mari-the angel, kind of magically proofed me here from France.” 

“France!’ Hadley exclaimed. “Explains the accent. How come your English is so good?”

“My school had us learning English at a very early age. Don’t you learn a second language at school?”

Hadley shook her head. “My school taught Spanish for a couple years but there wasn’t enough funding so language was cut from the curriculum.” 

“That’s insane!” 

“That’s America for you, our country is falling apart,” Hadley said sadly. 

“So I’ve heard. You never said where we were.” 

“Kansas I think. We hadn’t been in flight very long so we’re probably in the same state.”

“Huh, never been to Kansas so I’ll have to take your word for it.” 

“There!” Hadley shouted as the plane came into view. 

The plane looked pretty much intact beyond the wing it had lost during flight. They could see people being helped out of the plane, which was suspended in the air several feet by the trees it had crash landed on. 

“There’s my dad!” 

Chloé followed Hadley’s point till she spotted a man talking to a group of people. She moved to follow Hadley as she ran off in the direction of where her father was helping a pregnant woman out of the plane when a figure materialized a few feet in front of her. 

Marinette. 

Chloé watched as her glow flared for a moment as she looked the blonde up and down for any injuries. 

“Are you alright? One of the passengers from the other plane who came to help told me you have been hurt in the landing.”

“I’m okay, just a bit bruised. I can’t believe you saved not one, but two crashing planes!” 

Marinette nodded slightly and took a step closer. 

“You sure you’re alright? I shouldn’t have brought you, you could have been seriously hurt!”

“I wasn’t.”

“I didn’t think-“

“Marinette,” Chloé said, cutting the distance between them by half and grabbing her hand. She squeezed her hand softly before lifting their intertwined hands so Marinette’s hand cupped her cheek. “I’m fine”. 

Marinette lifted her hand so Chloé’s face was cupped in her hands as she checked Chloé over. 

“See, I’m fine.”

Marinette met her gaze and nodded opening her mouth to say something when a shout interrupted. 

“The angel!” Hadley exclaimed as she came barreling at them. 

Marinette dropped her hands and took a step away, distancing herself from Chloé. 

“Who’s this?” Marinette asked. 

“The name’s Hadley, your angel-ship.”

Marinette laughed, the sound like the ringing of bells. “I’m no angel.”

“Then why do you glow? And you can fly and you save people! What else could you be?” 

Chloé smiled warmly at Hadley, “It’s complicated.”

“Remember the last time you told me I wouldn’t understand?” Hadley huffed, then her eyes widened. “Speaking of which, was I…interrupting anything?”

Marinate looked to Chloé for answers and saw the blonde’s attempt to silently tell Hadley to shut up. She moved to say something, but then stood up straight and looked towards the edge of the forest. 

“The first responders are almost here,” she stated, a moment before the sound of sirens reached the ears of everyone else. 

“How did you-what was…When-“

Chloé could tell Hadley was brimming with questions, but her father called her over and she hugged Marinette and Chloé before reluctantly returning to her father’s side. 

“Shall we be going?” Marinate asked. “They can take it from here.”

“Go where?”

Marinette grabbed her hand, “There’s something I want to show you,” she said as the two once again disappeared into wisps of shadow. 

Before Chloé even opened her eyes she had a clue fo what sort of place they might be by her sudden shivering and teeth chattering. 

“Open your eyes,” Marinette whispered into her ear. 

It was beautiful. 

They were high up on a mountain with a vast landscape of snow covered hills for miles around them. 

“Where are we?” Chloé asked wonderstruck. 

“Norway,” Marinette said from beside her. “Do you like it?”

“I love it,” Chloé said, “but it’s a bit cold’ she added, huddling into herself. 

“Sorry. I don’t feel the cold anymore, I forgot you would,” she said and pulled Chloé inter her embrace so Chloé could feel the heat radiating off of Marinette. 

“Better?” 

“Much,” Chloé hummed as she buried her cold nose against Marionette’s neck, making the dark haired girl laugh. 

Chloé could feel the vibrations of the laugh and realized just how close the two of them were. She remembered what Hadley had told her. The kid was right, she needed answers. 

She pulled out of their embrace and her body immediately missed the warmth. 

“Is everything alright?”

“Look, there are things I need to ask and I need a clear head to ask them.”

“Alright…” Marinette responded hesitantly. “Go ahead.”

“First-“ shivers rocked her not well layered body. “First can we go somewhere warmer?”

Marinette smiled, “I know just the place,” she said holding out her hand and they disappeared again. 

When Chloé became conscious this time, she could feel humid heat against her skin. 

“Where are we?”

“Open your eyes and find out.”

They were surrounded by dark greens contrasted by other bright colors. Sounds of wildlife and pattering rain filled her ears. 

No way. 

“Welcome to the Amazon Rainforest Chloé,” Marinette said, her attention fixed to a frog hanging onto a nearby tree. 

“People say it’s dying,” Chloé muttered, “but this looks pretty healthy to me.” 

“Looks can be deceiving,” Marinette said melancholily. “The forest is a fraction of the size it used to be and many of its species are endangered.”

Chloé moved to respond when a grown came from behind her. Whipping around, she could see a pair of glowing eyes from within the bushes. 

“Is that-“

“A jaguar,” Marinette said in awe. 

“We gotta get out of here!”

“Why would we do that?”

“Aren’t they carnivorous? Won’t it want to eat us?”

“It’s a he, and he’s just finished quite a large meal of bird so he has no interest in eating us. Although he is wondering what we’re doing in his home.”

“His home?” 

“Apparently this is where he likes to sleep,” Marinette responded before kneeling down before the bush and holding out a hand. 

“Marinette, what are you doing?!”

“Apologizing for intruding,” Marinette responded and Chloé watched as the jaguar moved out of the darkness and bow his head into Marinette’s open hand. 

“Be careful!”

“Oh he’s not dangerous,” she said as she scratched under the jaguar’s chin for a moment before lifting back up into a standing position. 

“I apologize for the interruption,” she said in the direction of the jaguar. “We were just on our way.”

The jaguar’s gaze was fixed on Marinette like it could understand. 

“Okay, what’s going on? Can you…talk to animals?”

“I’m not sure talking is the right word as some creatures have no spoken languages, but yes, I have been able to communicate with every species I have come into contact with.”

“Wow,” Chloé stated for lack of a better word. 

“Come on, we best leave him to his afternoon nap,” Marinette said, leading Chloé a ways away before turning back to her. 

“You wanted to talk?”

“What? Oh, yes.”

Bird calls filled the canopy of the rainforest and a group of chattering monkeys could be heard off to their left. 

“Could we go somewhere a bit more quiet?” 

“Certainly,” Marinette said with a grin before grabbing her hand and they were gone. 

“Now you’re just showing off,” Chloé breathed as she looked out the window. “How is this even possible?”

“With a little help from my control over air.”

“But we’re underwater! In a shipwreck!” 

“I’m using pressure to keep water out of this room.”

“Not that this isn’t one of the most amazing things I’ve seen, but for what I want to talk about I need your undivided attention. Can we go somewhere where there are no distractions?” 

“Your wish is my command,” Marinette said and the room began to flood with water as the two vanished. 

“How’s this?”

They were in a field of flowers. 

“Where are we?”

“Somewhere in Alaska I believe, I saw a picture of this place in a book once.”

“It’s perfect.”

“So what did you want to talk about? You have my full attention,” Marinette said playfully, releasing her grasp on Chloé’s hand only to trail her fingers lightly up her arm.

Chloé moved away from the touch. “This is exactly what I wanted to talk about.”

“What?”

“This,” Chloé emphasized, gesturing between them. 

“What are we?”

“I don’t understand…” 

“We’ve grown closer since I found out who you were, since I was given the bee miraculous, but I know you’re also close with Adrien…So, I guess I’m wondering if we-“

Marinette’s glow flickered for a moment and she doubled over in pain. 

“Marinette! Are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” she said as she straightened shockingly before another wave hit her and she crumpled to the ground. 

“Marinette?” 

She was unresponsive.

Chloé knelt down and touched her shoulder and found it cold as ice, any warmth from the mountain long gone. 

“Marinette!” 

Still no response. 

Before she even knew what she was doing, Chloé had her phone out and it was ringing. 

“Hello?”

“Alya, Marinette’s hurt, you all need to get here now.”

“What? Slow down, where is here?”

“Alaska.”

“Alaska? Where in Alaska?”

“I don’t know. Some field of flowers? Marinette said she saw it in a book.”

“Chloé, Alaska is huge, there’s no way we could-“

Marinette’s body started to convulse. 

“You were Lady Wifi, track my phone!”

“But-“

“Figure it out!” She shouted before slamming her phone shut. 

At that moment, Marinette put her hands over her ears and began to scream at the top of her lungs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nearing the end of the story my friends!


	26. The List

Upon the discovery that Gabriel Agreste was Hawkmoth, much of the Agreste accounts had been frozen, but Adrien still had some money saved from his modeling and used that to order a private jet that flew them towards Alaska within an hour after Chloé had called them. 

Alya, using some less than legal hacking techniques, was able to pinpoint the region of Alaska Chloé’s phone was located, but was unable to get a more specific spot. 

While Nino lost himself in the miraculous book searching for what could be wrong with Marinette, Alya and Adrien racked their brains for where Marinette could have taken her and Chloé. 

“Chloé said it was a field of flowers from a book Marinette had read right? Have we had any school books that discussed Alaska?” Adrien prompted. 

“I don’t think so…”

“Where else might she have seen it? What does she read for fun?”

“She reads almost every genre,” Alya muttered, then began to laugh. 

“What is it?”

“It’s just, do you know why she reads so many different genres?” She had to pause to catch her breath. “It’s because she thinks it’s unfair to pay attention to only one section of a library. She doesn’t want other books to be left on a shelf to gather dust.” 

Adrien joined in on the laughter. “That sentiment screams Marinette, she’s one of the kindest people I’ve ever met.”

“She IS the kindest person I know,” Alta responded, “even if sometimes she seems too kind and unwilling to hurt others,” and just like that, the mood sobered again. 

“Don’t worry Alya, we’ll find them. Let’s think, if Marinette took Chloé there, the place must be fresh in her mind. What has she been reading recently?”

“She’s been on a huge syfy kick.”

“Well it’s unlikely a book in that genre is set in Alaska, what about before that?”

“She was reading…travel books!”

“That’s more like it!” Adrien exclaimed. “Think, did Marinette mention reading about any places in Alaska?”

“I don’t…wait, she did add something to the list when I was over at her house a couple of weeks ago. Before any of this happened.”

“What list?”

“Her-uh…”

“I don’t think Marinette would like it if I said...”

“Alya, Marinette is in danger, it doesn’t matter what she’d want if we don’t find them until it’s too late. What list?”

“The Adrien list,” Alya spat out quickly and then covered her face, “I’m a bad friend.”

“What’s the Adrien list?” He prodded. 

“It’s a list of what would happen in her dream relationship with you.”

“What does that even mean?”

“You know, places you’d eat, dates you’d go on, clothes she’d wear on dates, wedding stuff, kids names, yada yada yada.”

“Wedding stuff?! Kids names?!”

'Calm down.”

“Who plans all that stuff out?!”

“A lot of people.”

“Do you do that?”

She shook her head, “I leave that to Nino.”

Adrien turned towards his friend, who’s eyes peered past the top of the miraculous boo. 

“You’d have a list for your life with Alya?”

“Yeah, well, it’s a flash drive, and alphabetized,” he said with a wink before diving into the book again. 

Adrien turned back to Alya who was fidgeting with Marinette’s phone. 

“Why do you have that?”

“I thought it might in handy, and I was right. See!” 

She showed him the phone screen that was open to teh notes app titled with his name and hearts on either side of his name. 

“It’s locked.” 

“Don’t worry, I know the password,” she said as she typed it in. 

“Mrs.. Agreste?!” Adrien exclaimed.

“You’d be surprised how many of her passwords are that.”

Adrien shook his head, “We’ve gotten off topic, does it say anything about Alaska?”

Alya passed the phone to him and rubbed her eyes, “Can’t tell, my eyes are all blurry from not giving my eyes a rest from my contacts. You check out the list while I switch to my glasses,” she said before grabbing her bag and heading for the plane’s bathroom. 

Adrien started looking at the list while Alya was in the bathroom. Marinette didn’t have it alphabetized like Nino, but she was very thorough. She had dozens of categories with lists underneath. Under the category of Wedding Dress she had only one answer written underneath, ‘A Marinette Dupain-Cheng Original’, which made Adrien small. It reminded him how passionate Marinette was about designing, and she was good! He hoped Marinette would be able to have that dream become a reality, and to do that they needed to know where she and Chloé were. 

He skimmed down the list until he found a category labeled ‘Most Romantic Locations’. Surprisingly, the Eiffel Tower was on the list, but on the bottom with the sidetone “Overdone”. 

He read down the list until he reached her top choice. Googling the coordinates she had listed, he found that it was situated smack dab in the middle of the region of Alaska Alya had located Chloé’s phone in. 

He pressed the call button above his seat and fed the flight attendant the coordinates and they went off to inform the pilot. Once he had done that, he shut off her phone and stared out the window, letting the realization of his finding sink in. 

The bathroom door opened and Alya reappeared with her glasses. 

“What’d I miss? Did you find the spot?”

He nodded, “The pilot has already been told,” he said glumly. 

“Don’t worry Adrien, we’ll get to her in time.”

“No, it’s not that. Well, it is that, but it’s also about the list.”

“The list…” Alya repeated, unsure of how to respond. 

“You said yourself, the list is made up of what Marinette’s dream relationship would look like. 

“Yeah…with you.”

“And the location was under the ones she found most romantic, not just that, it was the top one.”

“So...I’m sorry, I’m not following.”

“So, she took Chloé there. Not me.” 

“Oh,” Alya said in realization. “I’m sure it doesn’t-“

“No, it does, and it’s okay. We can deal with all of this once Marinette is safe.”

Alya nodded, and the two sat in silence for a few minutes before the flight attendant returned. 

“Sir, we have arrived at the coordinates that you gave, but the plot can’t find anywhere to land.”

Adrien looked to the others to figure out what to do when Alya’s phone rang. 

“It’s Chloé! Everyone shut up!” She shouted as she answered and put it on speaker. 

“Chloé?”

“Is that you guys up there?” 

“What?”

“The plane, is it yours?”

“Yeah, it’s us, but we can’t find a safe place to land.”

“That’s fine. Hold on a sec,” Chloé said and the phone cut out. 

“Hold on a sec? What the-“

A flash of light filled the plane’s cabin and when it faded, Chloé sat on the floor with Marinette on her back and her head in Chloé’s lap. 

“How did you-“

“Marinette only needs to see or imagine a location and she’s able to transport there. But in her condition, she can only do small jumps.” 

Marinette began to shake and Chloé moved quickly. “Help me move her onto her side, she’s seizing.”

“Why is this happening to her?” Alya cried. 

“I think I may know,” Nino interjected. “The book doesn’t say much about the original being who wielded all the miraculous powers, but we know that he went power hungry. From what I can piece together, I think it was partially because of the madness caused by the conflicting aspects of some powers. That’s why the biggest powers were split between Tikki and Plagg. The powers needed balance but they can’t do that within one host, that’s why they needed to be separated.”

“So to save Marinette, we need to distribute the powers to different kwamis again?” Adrien asked. 

Nino nodded. 

“And if we don’t?”

“She’ll be ripped apart from the inside.”

“That’s not an option,” Alya said. 

“How do we do this?”

“We need to get back to Paris,” Nino said and Adrien alerted the pilot. “I need Master Fu’s supplies. 

———————————————————————————

The heroes urged the pilot to go as fast as possible with the assentive of a bonus on top of the heavy paycheck Adrien had already promised. When they arrived back in Paris they had the pilot fly over Marinette’s home, at which point they were close enough to have Marinette transport them down into her room one by one. When it was Alya’s turn she asked Marinette to drop her outside the bakery so she could figure out something to say to her best friend’s parents.

Peering through the windows, she could see that the bakery was dark and the sigh was flipped to closed, as it had been since Hawkmoth had been defeated. Marinette’s parents had both been akumatized for the majority of the time Marinette had been having her dreams and the fight against Hawkmoth. 

When they had been released, they asked Alya and the rest of the group if they had seen their daughter, who was Ladybug, had been severely injured during the fight against Hawkmoth and was now flying around fixing the world with their god-like powers. 

So, they had lied, and Alya swore she had never seen people loose more hope than Marinette’s parents when she had to play along with their fears that their daughter had been lost during what had been named the The Battle of Hawkmoth.   
She wanted to make that right, she was going to tell them the truth. 

Before any of this happened, she and Marinette had sworn to never reveal any secrets about each other to anyone else, and this was Marinette’s biggest secret of all, but she was in no place or right mind to decide now to tell them. If things went badly and she died, they deserved to know, deserved the chance to say goodbye. 

Alya knocked on the door and put her face up to the glass panes to see if either of her parents came down the stairs or out of the kitchen. 

“Aya?” Came Tom’s voice from the street behind her. She whirled around and found both of Marinette’s parents staring at her in shock. 

“Hello,” she said weakly, not sure how to start. 

“Where have you been?” Sabine asked. “You’ve been gone the past two days! Your parents have been worried sick!” 

“I sent them a text…” she said guilty. 

“They showed us. You only said you’d be back soon! They checked with Nino’s parents and heard he’s missing too and they thought you two might have run off together!” 

“Where have you been?” Tom demanded. 

She had promised them the truth. 

“Alaska.”

“Alaska,” Sabine repeated in disbelief. “What were you doing there?”

She had promised the truth. Deep breath. 

“We were finding Marinette.”

She saw Tom and Sabine exchange glances, both not wanting to give into hope quite yet. 

“What do you mean finding Marinette?” Tom asked. 

“Why would she be in Alaska,” Sabine questioned. 

“…She was hurt,” Alya said carefully. 

Any hesitation they had been holding onto flew out the window and she was bombarded with questions. Is she alive? Is she alright? Why was she in Alaska? Why haven’t we heard from her? Was she akumatized? 

Alya waited for a pause before she attempted to answer as many of their questions as possible. 

“Marinette is alive, she’s hurt but we’re working on it. She was in Alaska with Chloé, and as for your other questions…it’s a bit more complicated. But the easiest way is to just rip off the bandage and just tell you…Marinette is Ladybug.”

Tom looked as if he was about to loose it while Sabine looked suspiciously unfazed. 

“You knew?!” Tom asked, picking up on his wife’s reaction as well. 

“I suspected, and my suspicions were just confirmed.” 

“But-“

“Not now Tom,” she said before turning to Alya. “Was she injured while she was Ladybug?”

Alya nodded. 

“What happened?” Tom demanded. 

“She was shot by one of Hawkmoth’s akumas.” 

Tom and Sabine held onto each other tightly. 

“If she was injured, how did she get to Alaska?”

“See, that’s complicated. When she was hurt by the akuma, the only way to heal her was to combine all the powers of the miraculouses…which have given her incredible powers and now she’s-“

“She’s the guardian angel from the news isn’t she!” Tom said in awe. 

Alya nodded. 

“My little girl,” he said softly, “saving the world.”

“Tom, you’re getting off topic. Alya, if what you did saved her…why is she hurt?”

“That’s the problem. We’ve discovered that some of the powers don’t react to each other well, and she’ll keep on getting worse until the powers are separated again.”

“You keep saying we.”

“Yes. Me, Nino, Chloé, and Adrien.”

“You’re the heroes of Paris!”

Sabine looked like she was about to slap him. “Tom, now is not the time.”

“You’re right. Where is Marinette now?”

Alya looked up towards Marinette’s room. 

“She’s upstairs?!”

“Nino is trying to find a way to separate the miraculous powers like they once were before.”

Tom and Sabine exchanged looks. 

“We will do whatever you ask of us as long as you can save Marinette.”

“Good,” came a voice from behind them. 

Nino stood in the now open doorway of the bakery with a piece of paper he handed to Tom. “I need you to run an errand for me.” 

————————————————————————————

Tom and Sabine did quite well for people who had just found out their daughter was a hero of Paris and now guardian Angelo the world. 

They didn’t even question or hesitate when Nino sent them on a scavenger hunt to a dead man’s home. 

When they returned, they didn’t demand to see Marinette, they waited patiently to be allowed up into their daughter’s room.

“There’s something you need to know before you see her. Before this happened, she was having dreams about past heroes who had the powers of the Ladybug miraculous. When she took up all the other powers, she called us by the names of past holders of the other miraculouses.”

“What does that mean?”

“Well, we think she might have trouble distinguishing between her life and past holders.” 

“You’re saying she might have trouble distinguishing between her life and the past holders.”

“You’re saying she may not remember us,” Sabine said in barely a whisper. 

“She does seem to be drawn to us more than others.”

The three turned to see Adrien staring down at them.

“She’s pretty calm right now so we thought it would be a good time for you guys to come up before Nino gets started,” he said before disappearing back into Marinette’s room. 

Tom and Sabine squeezed their intertwined hands and went up the stairs, Alya following behind. 

Marinette lay on the ground of her room with a blanket underneath her, Adrien and Chloé said on either side of her.   
Tom sucked in a breath as he took in his glowing daughter. Her eyes were closed and her breath was shallow but present. 

Tom and Sabine looked around the room and took in the torn apart room. Furniture had been flipped over, there were holes in the walls and broken glass on the floor. They took in the buckets full of water on the ground and the faint smell of something burning in the air. 

“Marinette’s powers are a bit haywire,” Chloé said, seeming to have read her mind. “We brought up the buckets after she set the desk on fire.” 

Sabine looked over to the furniture in question and saw the burnt papers and the water dripping out of the drawers onto the floor. 

“Sorry about the carpet,” Chloé added, gesturing to another burnt spot on the floor. 

“How is she?” Tom asked, kneeling down beside his daughter but keeping a safe distance.

“She keeps falling in and out of consciousness,” Adrien said. 

“Is she in pain?” Sabine asked, joining her husband on the floor. 

Adrien nodded and opened his mouth to say something when Marinette gasped and her eyes flew open. 

Adrien, Chloé, and Alya lunged to work, Chloé trying to calm her down while Alya and Adrien held her body down. 

“What are you doing?” Tom asked frantically. “You’re hurting her!” He shouted as Marinette screamed. 

“It’s not us,” Alya promised. “What’s hurting her is the war to powers are waging inside her. Nino, hurry!” She shouted loud enough so the boy would be able to hear from the bakery below, where he was working. 

“But you’re holding her down!” Tom continued. 

“That’s to keep her from hitting the ceiling again,” Adrien explained, gesturing for Marinette’s parents to look up to where an outline of Marinette had been burned into it. 

“How-“

“She can levitate,” Adrien explained like it was a normal everyday occurrence. 

“It’s ready!” Nino shouted as he clunked up the stairs with the miraculous book in one arm and a glass full of something green in the other. “Hold her down,” he stated as he dropped down next to Marinette’s head and moved the drink towards her mouth. 

She thrashed in the others grasps, her glow flaring. 

“You need to keep her still guys! She has to drink the entire think or it won’t work!” 

Tom and Sabine moved closer to help, each grabbing hold of a leg. Marinette screamed and Nino took the opportunity to pour the drink into her open mouth and held her nose so she had no choice but to swallow, when she did, she collapsed back onto the ground and fell unconscious again. 

“What happened?”

“That was anti-climatic.”

Marinette’s body began to glow brighter and brighter until her body was enveloped in a blinding light. When it faded, she was done. 

“Where did she go?”

“Did it work?”

“I don’t understand.”

“Someone needs to explain to us what’s happening!” Tom shouted. 

“It worked. At least, I think it did…”

The others turned to Nino. 

“How can you be sure?” Sabine asked. 

“I can’t! The book doesn’t say anything about any of this!”

Hours past, and no one could do anything but wait and keep an eye out for any news that could relate to Marinette. 

 

It was at two in the morning that the first news came. A volcano in Hawaii had erupted and destroyed half the island, but there hadn’t been a single casualty. Accounts were flooding in about the guardian angel having transported everyone to the nearest island while also holding back the lava flow enough for most wildlife to make it to the safe side of the island.

By five in the morning, the island was said to look like the eruption never even happened, with lost homes having been rebuild and wildlife having grown back in only a few hours. 

“I suppose it did work in a way,” Alya said patting Nino’s hand comfortingly. “She seems to have full control of her powers again.”

“Our daughter is still our daughter, even if she’s dangerously all powerful,” Tom said more to assure himself to anyone else. 

“But, from what I put together…it said it was the same thing the guardians did. It should have worked!”

“It is, and it did.”

Everyone whipped around to face Marinette who stood in the frame of the open window. 

“What do you mean?”

“It was the same thing the guardians did all those years ago and it did work.”

“It clearly didn’t,” Nino said, “since you’re still…” he trailed off, gesturing to her glowing form. 

“What you gave me wasn’t meant to force the serration of the powers, but to dampen the conflict between them long enough for the holder to choose to relinquish the powers.”

Tom looked around lost, “I’m not sure I-“

“At first, I wasn’t sure I wanted to give it up. I like the power and the good I have been able to do with it. It’s addicting, but it also messes with your mind. So, I’ve decided to do the separation.”

The others smiled weakly in response. 

“There’s just something I have to do first.”

“What’s that sweetie?” Sabine asked. 

Marinette didn’t respond, she just walked over to Adrien, grabbing his hand and the two disappeared.


	27. Out of Time

When Adrien was able to assess his surroundings, he realized that they were in his house. More specifically, in the room where his mother remains encased in her chamber. 

When he had turned his father over to the authorities, he had chosen to keep this room a secret, not wanting to risk something happening to his mother in an attempt to move her. 

He watched as Marinette moved over to his mother and looked over the panel reading off her vitals. 

“What are you doing Marinette? Why are we here?” 

“I said there was one more thing I want to do before I give up all of this. With my powers I can see everything-“ she trailed off as she became preoccupied with pressing buttons. 

“What does that mean? What are you doing to her?”

“I’m going to bring her back.”

Adrien’s heart leapt. “How?”

“One of my power is the ability to see the ties between things, between people.”

“Ties?”

“They look like these glowing strings between things. The stronger the bond, the brighter the glow. The string coming from your mother that glows the most is connected to you. I’m hoping that having you here when I go into her mind will help her come back.”

“Woah wait. Go into her mind? Can you do that?”

I can do anything.

Adrien stumbled back. Marinette’s mouth hadn’t moved but he could have sworn he heard her…

“Did you say something?”

“In a matter of speaking,” She said with a grin.

“Now we need to move quickly. I can already feel the fog getting in again and my mind won’t be clear enough to split apart the powers for much longer. She I open the chamber, she’s going to fall forward. We need to catch her and lay her on the floor.”

“Wait! What about her injuries? Isn’t the chamber the only thing keeping her alive?”

Marinette shook her head. “I’ve healed any remaining internal damages. The only problem is that her mind is unwilling to come back. We need to coax her out. That’s why you’re here.”

“But-“

“We’re out of time. Ready?”

Adrien nodded and Marinette pressed a sequence of buttons that opened the chamber and his mother free fell towards him. Adrien grunted with the weight as he tried to lower his mother down to the ground as gentry as possible. As soon as his mother lay on the ground, Marinette dropped down beside her and grabbed one of her hands, gesturing for Adrien to grasp the other. 

“I won’t be able to bring you into her mind too, but she’ll be able to feel you. When I wake her up, she’s going to be disoriented, try to keep her calm. Here we go,” she said as she closed her eyes and stilled. 

Adrien watched, barely breathing, waiting for some sort of movement from either of them. After a minute, Marinette dropped his mother’s hand and opened her eyes. 

“It worked. She should awaken in a few moments,” she said as she stood and began to move away.

“Where are you going?”

“I’ve run out of time,” Marinette said. “I need to split the powers now.”

“How-“

“When I do Adrien, the world’s memories of me will be wiped from everyones memories too. It’s not safe for people to know that creating a power like this is possible.”

“What do you mean? How-“

“Adrien?”

Adrien’s heart dropped as he recognized the voice he had been deprived of for so long.

“Mom,” he muttered brokenly as he turned just in time to catch his mother who fled into his arms. 

“My dear boy, how you’ve grown!”

“I’ve missed you so much!” Adrien sobbed into her shoulder as she pulled him even closer to her, but she gasped and puled away. 

“Where is your father?”

“He can’t hurt us anymore mother. He’s locked away.”

Emilie let out a sigh of relief before her gaze shifted to behind him and her eyes widened. 

“Adrien? What’s happening?” His mother asked worriedly. 

Adrien turned, having forgotten Marinette, who was now radiating with energy. 

“Marinette?” He asked hesitantly as he creeped closer to his mom, putting himself between her and Marinette. “Marinette, stop. Wait for everyone else, we’ll figure out what to do-“

“We’re out of time Adrien. If I don’t do this now I won’t be able to. I’ll be lost, I won’t be me anymore.”

It was like her body was cracking like china, with each crack seeming to spew out blinding golden light. Another crack appeared down her cheek and Adrien watched her wince in pain. 

“Is there anything we can do?” Emilie asked, the ever caring mother. 

Marinette shook her head. “Nothing can be done now that the process has begun. Too late to stop now-“ she choked on the last word as another sound of a crack forming and her shoulders lurched forward and she clutched her chest. “Take cover you two,” she gritted. “I don’t want you to be caught in the blast.”

“Blast?”

The cracking noises slowed until there was one last crack and Marinette exploded into light. 

Adrien and his mother dove for cover, both hiding their faces in their hands as shards of glass and rocks flew through the air before falling to the floor around them. 

Adrien wasn’t sure how long they stayed like that, moments, minutes, hours, but he didn’t dare look up in fear of what would be left of Marinette, or if there would be anything left at all.

“Emilie!” Came a shriek and Adrien looked up in time to see a small blue blur crash into his mother. 

“Duusu!” His mother cried as she cuddled the small kwami in her arms. 

“I’m so sorry I couldn’t protect you Emilie. Please forgive me!” 

His mother shook her head, tears in her eyes. “You have nothing to apologies for. He chose his own path.”

“Kid!” Came another shout and Adrien laughed as Plagg tumbled into him. 

“Missed you buddy,” Adrien sighed as he looked down at the small black cat that clung to his shirt, who purred in response before murmuring something about needing cheese. 

Adrien began to laugh when his mother placed a hand on his arm to get his attention before gesturing ahead of them. Adrien followed her point until his gaze landed on Marinette. 

He leapt up and raced over to her, only to realize that she was quite naked and turned away quickly before calling for his mother, who he handed his cardigan over to. 

When she called out that he could look again, Adrien knelt down next to Marinette who showed no signs of consciousness. 

“What do we do?” Emilie asked. 

Adrien opened his mouth to answer when someone beat him to it. 

“You need to take her to a hospital.”

Adrien looked around for the owner of the voice until he found Tikki flitting around Marinette, checking for any injuries. 

“But what would we say? We can’t exactly tell the doctor’s that she’s the guardian angel everyone’s been seeing in the news.”

Tikki nodded. “They wouldn’t even know what you’re talking about. We will have to think of another explanation”

“What do you mean?” 

“They won’t remember the guardian angel.”

Adrien remembered one of the last things Marinette had said to him, something about wiping the memory of everyone about her powers. 

“But we remember…”

“That’s because you two are holders. Everyone else will have forgotten-“

Marnette gasped and surged up into a sitting position, clutching Adrien’s cardigan to her chest. 

“What happened?” She asked, gasping for air. 

“It worked! All the kwamis are back!” Adrien cheered. “Are you alright Marinette?”

“I think so…Where am I?”

“You’re still in the same spot, it’s just you kind of blew up some stuff. Are you hurt?”

“No, no. I think I’m alright.”

“Marinette?”

“Why do you keep calling me that?”

“What?”

“Why are you calling me that?” She repeated. 

“Calling you-Marinette, what?”

“Yes, that. Why are you calling me that?”

“…It’s your name.”

“No, no it’s not. It’s…it’s…I don’t know,” she said, tears welling in her eyes. “I don’t know what my name is.”

Adrien shook his head. “What do you mean-“

“I don’t know who I am!” Marinette cried. “I don’t remember who I am!” Her wide eyed gaze shifted between the two of them.. “Who am I?” 

Adrien and his mother exchanged worried glances and he pulled out his phone while his mother tried to keep Marinette calm. 

“Nino? It’s me. Get in my house, quick. Something’s wrong with Marinette.”

——————————————————————————

ONE WEEK LATER 

The news outlets flooded with the news that the heroes had returned. 

‘Chat Nor interrupts robbery in progress”

“Rena Rouge solves kidnapping case”

“Queen Bee pays visit to train disaster victims in hospital”

“Carapace saves family from burning home”

Well, almost all the heroes. 

“Ladybug still missing”

“Heroes remain silent on Ladybug disappearance” 

“Where is Ladybug?”

Alya had gotten her Ladyblog back up again. It would have been to suspicious for the #1 Ladybug blog to go quiet with Ladybug’s disappearance after the Battle of Hawkmoth. 

School started up again and everything seemed to go bak to normal, except there was an empty seat next to Alya. 

When Miss Bustier asked who would move to the seat, Chloé had surprised all of their peers except for the secret heroes when he volunteered to switch seats. 

When lunch came around, the four heroes huddled together, whispering in hushed tones that only raised the suspicions of their classmates. 

By last period, and Nino stood up for Chloé, Sabrina demanded an explanation on what was going on. 

Miss Bustier tried to change the topic, but other students joined in and Alya ran out of the room, followed by Chloé.   
The others looked to Nino and Adrien, but the two just shook their heads and asked to get back to the class lecture. 

At the end of the school day, Adrien’s mother waited outside to pick him up from school. 

“Are you ready for this?” She asked as she looped her arm through Adrien’s. 

He nodded and they headed towards the jail where they were going to convince Gabriel to sign divorce papers. 

When they got back to the hotel where they were staying, Adrien offered to go get dinner for the two of them, not wanting her to be alone, but she shook her head, saying she would be fine. Adrien smiled and gave Plagg a slice of cheese before transforming and leaping out the window his mother held open. 

The heroes had begun to fall into a routine of who went on patrol when, but there wasn’t much for them to do since there were no longer any akumas to fight. Therefore, most of the time the heroes found themselves just sitting together on the Eiffel Tower. 

“Have you heard anything from…” Nino trailed off. 

“Sabine says they’ll be home soon,” Alya announced. 

“Has there been any progress?” Chloé asked. 

Alya shook her head. “Not since the last time I asked. It’s hard,” she murmured and Chloé squeezed her hand. 

One by one the heroes began to head home, and soon only Chloé and Adrien remained, both sitting in silence until Adrien finally stated. 

“I miss her.”

“Me too,” Chloé admitted before standing up and leaping off the tower. 

Adrien watched as she leapt from rooftop to rooftop until she was out of sight. 

He stayed in his spot for another hour, watching as the city below lit up with lights before he too headed home to sleep for a few hours before having to get up for school the next morning. 

The heroes had taken to waiting for each other in the courtyard before heading to class, but Alya was late that morning. The others were deciding whether or not to go to class without her when she came barreling through the front gate, her hair a mess and papers flying out of her backpack. 

“What’s up with you?” Nino asked. 

“I stopped by the bakery,” Alya wheezed. 

The others exhanged glances, Alya had done the same each morning the past week but had never been late before. 

“But why are you late?” Adrien asked. 

“The lights were on!” Alya exclaimed. “I walked by, expecting it to still be all locked up but there were lights in the bakery!”

“And?” Nino prompted. 

“So I went up and-“

“Students! To class please!” Miss Bustier shouted to them from across the courtyard. 

“We can talk about it after school,” Adrien said.

“But-“ Alya started but the class bell rang, silencing her. 

“We’ll talk later Alya,” Adrien repeated. 

The others nodded and followed him to class, where all their classmates were already sat in their seats and talking amongst themselves. 

“What’s going on?” Chloé asked Sabrina, who moved to answer but Miss Bustier interrupted.

“You four take your seats. We’re going to start today’s class work a bit late today because of a sort of odd situation. Come on in,” she called to whoever was standing outside the room. 

Tom walked in, a plate of macaroons in hand. 

“Hello,” he bellowed. 

“Class. Many of you may know, but for those who don’t, this is Mr. Dupain-Cheng, Marinette’s father. Marinette was severely inured during the fight against Hawkmoth and as a result has a form of amnesia. Fo you have anything to add?” She asked turning to Tom. 

“This is what I was trying to tell you guys,” Alya whispered. 

“Marinette’s doctors thought it would be good for her to be around a familiar environment, or at least one that should be.” Tom stated to the class. “Marinette remembers facts, but not people or events of regarding her specifically. She can’t remember any of her birthdays but she remembers how to do math, she doesn’t remember any of her friends or family but she knows who won The Bachelor.”

The class laughed at that point and Tom smiled weakly. 

“We were hoping it would be alright with you all if she spent the day here, it could help her trigger some memories.”

“What do you say class?” Miss Bustier asked. 

The class nodded and verbally announced their agreements. Almost all of them knew Marinette as one of the kindest people they’ve ever met and were more than willing to help however they could. 

“As I said, Marinette remembers facts, but the past year all but completely gone,” 

A few gasps sounded from the class. 

“The doctor’s believe it might be a form of protecting herself from any traumas that she may have injured,” Tom continued, before zeroing his gaze onto the heroes specifically. “She doesn’t remember anything about Hawkmoth, akumas, or the heroes of Paris, and we would ask you to keep discussion of those topics to a minimum.” 

The heroes exchanged glances and there were more nods from the class. 

“Very well then,” Miss Bustier said. “Class, let’s welcome back our dear student and friend, Marinette.”

The heroes watched wide eyed as Marinette walked through the door with Sabine following behind her. 

“Hello,” she said cautiously. “I’m Marinette. It’s nice to meet you all…again.”


	28. Connections Between

The heroes could only watch as Marinette took the empty seat by Sabrina, pulled out a notebook, and quietly began to take notes as the teacher began class. Throughout the class, whenever Marinete raised her hand to answer a question, she was met with a glassful of meaning smiles and praise by the teacher. Unnoticed by everyone except the heroes was the uncomfortable expression across her face at the unwanted over the top attention being given to her. 

During each break, Marinete was bombarded with questions about what happened to her, what having amnesia was like, if she remembered any of them. Or that she must remember when this event or that event happened. 

When lunch tame around, everyone was asking her to sit with them, but she made a quick excuse of needing to take her medications and moved away from them. The heroes watched as she left, all four of them having kept their distance in comparison to their classmates. 

“Did you not like me?”

The group whipped around to see Marinette standing behind them. None of them spoke so Marinette asked again. 

“It’s just, everyone has been surrounding me and asking me questions. Except for you four. Did I do something to offend you guys that I can’t remember? I apolygize if I did, I’m sure it wasn’t intentional.”

“No no,” Adrien spoke up. “It’s just…hard for us.”

“Hard for you?” Marinette said with raised eyebrows. “I can’t remember the past year. I can’t remember my parents and I can see how it breaks their hearts. I am SO SORRY if my hardships make you uncomfortable.”

“There’s the Marinette fire I’ve missed,” Nino muttered under his breath with a chuckle and Alya smacked his shoulder. 

“I’m sorry, it’s not that we’re uncomfortable…it’s just…well, um-I’m Alya and-“

“Wait, you’re Alya?”

Alya’s eyes widened and she nodded. “Yes, do you remember me??”

Marinette shook her head. “No sorry. It’s just that my parents have told me about you and you’re in a lot of pictures. My parents said you are my best friend. Is that right?” She reviewed a nod. “They told me you stopped by the baker this morning. I’m sorry I missed you. I was at the doctors.” She turned to the others when Alya just stared. “And you all are?” 

They introduced themselves one by one but none of them sparked the same reaction Alya had, or at least not one that Marinette showed. 

“So are we all friends? I recognize you two from a couple of pictures too,” Marinette said gesturing to Nino and Adrien before turning to Chloé. “I haven’t seen you in any though. Are we friends?”

Chloé snapped out of her stare and nodded. “Um, yeah. We’re friends…Just…newer friends than you and the others.”

Marinette’s head tilted for a moment before she shook her head and smiled, holding out her hand. “Well it’s nice to meet you all…again,” she said with a laugh as she shook each of their hands, her smile faltering for a moment when it was Chloé’s turn, her gaze shifting down to their hands before letting go. “Sorry, I haven’t remembered anything…but sometimes I get these…feelings”

“Feelings?” Alya asked. 

“They only last for a moment or two, and they happen at the weirdest time sometimes. I once got one looking at a Ladybug,” she said with a laugh and the others exchanged glances. 

“Marinettte?” 

She turned to see her parents with the teacher. 

“I’m sorry,” she said turning back to the group. “I’m only allowed to do half days right now. Would you all maybe want to stop by my house after school? I would like to talk to you all some more without all the prying eyes,” she said gesturing to the classmates who stared at the group.

Alya nodded and smiled. “We’d love to, see you then.”

After school, the heroes headed towards Marinette and soon found themselves sitting in her room, each with a warm croissant on a plate in front of them. 

Marinette’s room was covered in new items, both the desk and the rug Marinette had burned were replaced, the Marientte shaped mark on her ceiling has been painted over and spotless new widows replaced the ones she had shattered. 

When the heroes had come upstairs, Marinette had been pooled over a pile of photos and writing in a notebook beside her. 

“Sorry about the mess,” Marinette apologized, gesturing to the wall in her room that was covered with photos and labels that were tied together by color-coded strings. 

“What is this?” Alya asked. 

“I’ve been trying to put together my life, figure out where the things I don’t remember fit into the things I do.”

“And the different colored strings?”

“Green is for family, yellow for school, blue for friends…”

“You have a lot of questions written up there,” Chloé noted. 

“It’s hard,” Marinette admitted, “My mind can tell that memories are missing and it’s keeping me from sleeping. I thought that maybe writing it all down and putting it up where I could see it might help.”

“We could hep you answer some of these,” Alya offered and Marinette smiled. 

“I was hoping you would.”

“Where would you like to start?”

“How about the fact that I’m Ladybug and you’re the heroes of Paris.”

Nino choked on his croissant and fell into a coughing fit. “I’m sorry? What-what gives you that idea?”

“I’m not an idiot,” Marinette said. “Plus, most of my memories that are missing were ones that I was personally involved with. Someone mentioned being akumatized at school and I thought maybe that was the reason why I couldn’t remember akumas and Hawkmoth, so I checked out your blog but didn’t find nothing that mentioned me ever being akumatized. Then I realized that the only way I wouldn’t remember any of it was if I had been involved with every akuma dn Hawkmoth. There was no way I could be akumatized for so long so the only explanation was that I was one of the heroes of Paris and since the other heroes have returned but Ladybug has been declared missing…I theorized it was because I was her. Did I get anything wrong?” 

Adrien started laughing. 

“What?” Marinette asked defensively, “Did I get it wrong?

“No no, it’s just, the world has been trying to figure out our identities for over a year and you figured it out in one afternoon.”

“Classic Marinette” Nino chuckled. 

“So I was Ladybug? And you all are the heroes of Paris?” They all nodded. “Wow. So does that mean the way I lost my memory has to do with me being Ladybug?” More nods. “Is there a way to fix it?”

Nino shook his head. “I’m sorry, I’ve been looking, but I’ve found nothing that explains the gaps in your memory.” 

Marinette nodded, her disappointment clearly visible on her face. 

Alya moved to comfort her friend who screams broke out from several blocks away and all the heroes turned towards the noise. 

“Go,” Marinette said. “Paris needs more saving than I do.”

Nino smiled and placed a quick kiss to the top of her head before transforming to Carapace and jumping out the window. 

Alya squeezed Marinette’s hand and transformed to Rena Rouge. She paused at the window and turned back to Marinette. 

“Can I come back later? We can talk?”

Marinette smiled. “I’ll be here.”

Alya nodded and took off out the window. 

Chloé transformed next, giving a quick glance to Marinette before shaking her head and swinging out the window and across the rooftops of Paris. 

Adrien transformed and moved to follow the others when Marinette grabbed his hand. 

“Wait,” she called as she moved up closer to him and pressed a kiss to his lips. 

Adrien forgot everything else, his mind full of Marinette as he pulled her into him again by the waist. 

When they finally pulled apart, Adrien searched her face for any resurfaced memories. 

“Did you remember anything?”

Marinette shook her head, eyes glazed as she ran her fingers through his hair. “Sorry, nothing.”

Another round of screams sounded and Marinette placed another quick kiss to his lips before pushing him towards the window. 

“Now go. Go save Paris.”

Adrien nodded and dropped out the window, his thoughts consumed by the kiss and what it meant. 

When Adrien arrived at the scene, there were burning ruins where one of the biggest banks in Paris had been. 

“What happened?” He shouted to Nino when he saw him race by. “Some sort of bomb we think,” Nino responded as he used his shield to protect a couple from a failing piece of debris. 

Adrien assessed the scene, spotting Chloé and Alya helping the citizens out of the building. 

“Is this everyone?” Adrien asked. 

“There’s someone stuck under the a column in one of the backrooms,” Chloé said gesturing in the direction before taking the child in her arms towards the ambulances where oxygen tanks were being set up for those who had inhaled too much smoke. 

Adrien took off into the building, coughing as he searched through the smoke for the trapped civilian. When he found the pilar he called for a cataclysm and the pillar crumbled to dust as he pulled the unconscious civilian from the wreckage and helped the paramedics lift them into an ambulance. 

After the akuma attack, the heroes went home to their respective families to check in and recharge their kwamis. 

Throughout his dinner with his mother, Adrien couldn’t get Marinette out of his head. He had thought that their kiss might have dislodged at least a few memories. While he was over the moon from the kiss, he couldn’t help but feel guilty. He had known that something had been forming between Marinette and Chloé before she lost her memories and he felt somewhat dirty for having taken advantage of those now open spots in her heart. 

Unable to sleep, he decided he needed to talk to Marinette and found himself transforming and sneaking past his sleeping mother in the middle of the night. 

When he landed on her balcony, he noticed that her light was still on despite it being past midnight. He moved over to the window and spotted Marinette standing in front of her wall, adding new lines of string to connect pictures and events. 

Adrien took in the wall, smiling softly at how many photos of him and the rest of the heroes there were. 

Lifting up a hand, he knocked on the window and Marinette jumped before turning, smiling when she saw who it was. 

Marinette opened the window, staying close enough that there were only mere inches between her and Adrien. He could loose himself in her gaze, but he took a step away, clearing his throat. 

“I’m sorry I’m here so late,” he said, looking outside at the dark Paris sky. “I couldn’t sleep and wanted to check on you.”

“No worries,” Marinette said, closing much of the distance between them. “I couldn’t sleep either,” she noted before she hooked her finger into his suit and used her grasp to pull Adrien’s mouth to hers. 

Adrien froze for a moment but soon responded eagerly, intoxicated by Marinette’s smell. He wasn’t sure how much time past with him in Marinette’s embrace. At some point, her hands had moved away from his collar and were not twined through his hair and pulling gently. 

Adrien pulled away an inch to breath and Marinette took the opportunity to drop her attention to his neck. 

Adrien’s breath grew ragged, his arms roaming up and down Marinette’s back. Adrien yelped when Marinette bit his neck slightly to hard and his eyes flashed open, his gaze landing on the wall. More specifically, they fell on an image of Chloé and a notecard Marientte had attached to it with a question mark written on it. 

“Wait, wait,” he drawled, moving away from Marinette. “We can’t do this.”

“Why?” Marinette asked confused. “In’t this okay?”

Adrien shook his head, “no, well- I mean yes, this is great, and I would love for it to continue, but it’s not fair to you.”

Marinette frowned. “I don’t understand, I thought this was something we did before I lost my memory. Is it not? Much of my diary talks about a crush on you.”

“It’s complicated,” Adrien said, unsure of how to explain. 

“Complicated how?” Marinette demanded, not letting him off easy. 

“Before you lost your memory, you were having these dreams…”

“Yes,” Marinette said nodding. “Alya came back earlier and explained all of that.”

“Right, so…many of those dreams showed past Chat Noir and Ladybug holders as being romantically involved. And between these dreams and with the revelations of our identities, we started to get closer.”

“Hence the….” Marinette trailed off, gesturing between the two of them. “So what’s the problem?” Marinette said, taking a step into him. 

“Well, at the time time as all of this was happening,” Adrien explained, “you were akumatized for a time. And then we found out that Hawkmoth was my father.”

“Is that why this is complicated?” Marinette asked. “You don’t need to feel guilty about the actions of your father. I don’t blame you for me getting akumatized, and I’m sure me with my memories didn’t either.”

“No, it’s not that,” Adrien said, trying to figure out how he could explain. 

He moved over to Marinette’s wall of photos and strings and pointed to the photo of Chloé with the question mark next to it. “Why did you write this?” He asked. 

“I don’t know,” Marinette replied. “I can figure out how I am friends with you, Alya, and Nino,, but I don’t understand Chloé. From what I read in my journal, we couldn’t stand each other.”

“But that all changed when she became Queen Bee,”

“I thought as much, but I don’t know, there’s something about there that I can’t quite place…” she said, trailing off as she stared at the photo. She shook her head. “I don’t understand what this has to do with anything.”

Adrien realized what he had to do. In truth, he had known even before he came here. 

“They said that a strong emotional trigger might bring back your memory.”

“Right…” Marinette said hesitantly. “I thought that’s what we were trying to do…”

“Yes, but it didn’t work, and I think there’s only one thing that could bring it all back, and it’s not me…or Chloé.”

“What do you mean Chloé?”

“We can’t do anything else until you know how you feel,” he said ignoring her question. “And that’s only going to happen by your memories coming back.”

“And how do we do that?”

Adrien reached into his pocket and pulled out a box, holding it out to her. 

“What is that?” Marinette asked confused. 

He opened the box to reveal a pair of spotted earrings. “They’re the Ladybug miraculous. Put them on and you’ll have her powers again.”

“You think being her again will bring back my memories?”

“I do,” Adrien said. “And when your memories come back you will know exactly how you feel, and who you feel for.  
“You mean you or Chloé,” Marinette finished, understanding in her eyes as her glance shifted back to the picture of Chloé before returning to him. “But what if whatever I feel isn’t for you? Are you sure you want my memories back?”

Adrien smiled weakly. “I want you happy,” he said closing her hands around the box and moved to the window. “However that’s achieved.”

Marinette stared down at the box in her hand for a long time after Adrien left. 

When the group had left her house earlier in the day, marinate had read her diary and was so sure that connecting with Adrien would bring back all of her memories. How could it not? Marinette hadn’t written about being Ladybug in her diary. Probably in case someone read it. And without being able to talk about her secret double life, more than 80% of her entries had been gushing over Adrien. 

True to her word, Alya had stopped by again. Marinette hadn’t thought to question her friend’s expression when she had brought up her suspicions that she and Adrien had been in a relationship. Nor had she question Alya’s staring at the photo of Chloé until Adrien did the same. 

Marinette’s diary did not have very kind things to say about Chloé, but when Marinette had met Chloé, something had sparked for a moment in her mind. It wad been one of the few flashes of past memories surfacing she’d had, but like the others, it faded too quickly. Now that both Alya and Adrien had aknowledged her past with Chloé, she needed to know what happened between them. 

She opened the miraculous box and a red ball of light floated out before transforming into what looked like a little red bug. 

“I told you not to bother me for a hundred years Plagg, I’m not ready for a new holder-“ the little bug spun around and froze upon seeing Marinettte. 

“Marinette,” Tikki whispered, tears welling in their eyes. 

Marinette fell back a step as a past memory surged forward, the image of the first time she met the kwami, and this time the memory didn’t fade.   
“Tikki?” Marinette asked hesitantly, more asking herself how she knew that than asking the kwami. The kwami broke into a sob and flew to Marinette, cuddling into her chest. 

“You remember!” The kwami cried and Marinette’s eyes grew blur with tears. 

“Meeting you has been the first time I’ve remembered. Adrien thought that me being Ladybug again would bring everything back.”

“Oh please!” Tikki begged. “Please be Ladybug again! I’ve missed you so much! You’re the best holder I’ve had in a long time, I’m not ready to let you go!”

Another memory shot through Marinette’s mind with Tikki flying around the room dancing with Marinette to a song on the radio. She smiled at the memory. 

“I want to remember you Tikki,” Marinette said, “but I’m afraid of what else I might remember.”

“Is this about Chloé?” Tiki asked, understanding what Marinette was really saying.

“No…yes…I don’t know. My journal doesn’t have very nice things to say about there, and there’s clearly something between me and Adrien. What if I don’t like who I become when I remember?”

Tikki shook her head. “I can’t answer that for you Marinette. The only way you’ll know is by taking this step. I’ll support you with whatever you decide, and so will Adrien and Chloé if they want what will make you happy like I know they do.”

Marinette nodded and put on the earrings. 

“What do I do now?”

“All you have to say is Tikki, spots on! And you’ll be transformed.”

Another flash was triggered by the phrase, and Marinette remembered the first time she had become Ladybug. 

She faltered. It was a lot of responsibility to be a hero of Paris. This was her one chance to walk away from it, her one chance to start over. She looked over to her wall, to the photos of her family and friends, to the images of Adrien and Chloé. She didn’t want to hurt either of them. 

“Is it worth it?” Marinette asked quietly. 

Sirens sounded from several blocks away and Marinette’s gaze shot in its direction in forgotten habit. 

There was her answer.

“Tikki, spots on!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter will be the last of the fic.


	29. Am I Dreaming?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> End of the line.

When Chloé woke up for school the next morning, she checked her phone to find twelve messages and three missed calls from Alya. Without reading the messages, she pressed the call button and fell back against there pillows sleepily as the phone rang. 

“Girl! Where have you been?!”

“Sleeping? Like any normal person would be at this house?”

“How could you be sleeping right now?! Didn’t you read any of my texts?”

“Not yet, I just woke up. Can’t you just tell me?”

“Are you sitting down?”

“I’m still in bed Why are you acting so weird Alya? Just tell me.”

“There were multiple Ladybug sightings last night!”

Chloé sat up in bed so fast that she was hit with a dizzy spell. “What?!”

“Now I have your attention. The Ladyblog got sent multiple stories, pictures, and videos of Ladybug running around Paris last night!”

“Marinette is Ladybug again?”

“Apparently! Adrien said he stopped by her house last night and gave her the miraculous, hoping that it would bring her memories back.”

Chloé’s breath caught and she cleared her throat.

“Did it?”

“I don’t know, nobody has heard from her yet. I’m hoping she’ll be at school again.”

Chloé’s heart raced and she struggled to keep her voice steady. “I’ve got to get ready. See you in class!” She said, ignoring Alya’s continued speech as she shut her phone. 

Chloé read up on the recent Ladybug activity, discovering that she had stopped a shooting that had taken place last night, the men responsible had been found by the police wrapped up against a pole by the well known spotted yoyo while Ladybug had been seen treating the victims until ambulances arrived. 

When Chloé finally looked away away from the computer to check the time, she saw that she had wasted away half an hour and now had five minutes to get to school. Racing past her father in the kitchen, she placed a kiss to his cheek and grabbed an apple before racing out the door with disheveled clothes and an unzipped backpack. 

By the time her car arrived at school, Chloé’s hair was brushed and up in her signature backpack, and her clothes were straightened. While sticking to her color signature of yellow, Chloé had switched out her normal pants and blazer for a t-shirt and pair of overall shorts. She hadn’t thought anything of her wardrobe change, but when she walked into the classroom all eyes had turned to her and looked her up and down as she took her now normal seat next to Alya. 

“No Marinette?” She whispered to her friend and Alya shook her head. 

The rest of the class went by as it normally did until it hit lunch period and all the heroes raced to Marinette’s family bakery during the break. 

Tom and Sabine greeted them as they entered the door with large smiles on their faces. 

“Hello,” Alya replied with a smile. “Any…progress?” She asked hesitantly and Tom’s smile widened even further as he bounded around the countertop to crush all the heroes together in a hug. 

“As if you don’t know!” He chuckled. “I don’t know how you did it, but we woke up this morning to Marinette doing her usual morning routine of chores for the bakery!”

“What does that mean?” Nino asked. 

“It means that she’s remembering idiot!” Alya exclaimed with tears in her eyes. 

“She’s remembering!” Tom shouted as he shook the kids he still had bundled in her arms. 

“Tom would you let the poor teenagers go? They need to breathe.”

Reluctantly, Tom released the heroes and returned to his post behind the counter. 

“Where is she now?” Adrien asked and Sabine gestured to upstairs. “She was out all night so she’s been sleeping quite a bit today. She should probably be awake by now, and if she’s not, she probably should be so she will be able to sleep tonight. You all go up.”

When the heroes went into Marinette’s room, they found her curled on the floor with a blanket over her with Tikki snuggled into her hair. 

The sound of the hatch closing behind Nino stirred Tikki, but Marinette remained fast asleep. 

“Sorry to bother you Tikki,” Alya whispered. “We wanted to check on Marinette, her parents let us up.”

Tikki smiled down at her holder. “We were out all night. The adrenaline kept her going for a while, but after finishing her chores she crashed and didn’t even make it to the bed before passing out. I thought it best not to move her.”

“Marinette,” Nino spoke out just above a whisper. “Marinette!”

“What are you doing?” Alya whispered. 

“Her parents said to wake her up!” Nino yelped in defense. “Plus, I have questions. Don’t you have questions?”  
“I have nothing BUT questions,” Chloé muttered to herself and Adrien nodded in agreement. 

“I would expect nothing less,” Marinette replied sleepily as her eyes fluttered open. 

“How are you?” Chloé asked hesitantly, kneading down onto the ground with the other heroes following in her stead. 

“Sleepy,” Marinette replied honestly. “I had forgotten how exhausting and time consuming being Ladybug was.”

“So…you remember being Ladybug?” Adrien questioned.

“Yes and no,” Marinette answered. “Bits and pieces have been coming back, but not at all. It’s strange.”

“Strange how?” Alya asked and Tikki turned to the other kwamis. 

“I’m hungry. Let’s go downstairs to the bakery and let the holders talk.”

“The memories have been coming back in dreams,” Marinette continued. “Like the ones I had about past miraculous holders.”

“So what have you remembered?”

“Most of my childhood, becoming Ladybug…”

“Maybe the better question to ask is what you don’t remember,” Nino interrupted. 

“I still don’t remember much after the dreams first started, and I don’t remember anything after being hurt.”

“I suppose that makes sense,” Adrien thought out loud and Marinette’s eyes moved to his. 

“”So you all remember what happened after? My parents didn’t seem to, unless they were lying,”

“They weren’t lying,” Nino explained. “Everyone except miraculous holders had what happened after you being hurt erased.”

“Then how come I don’t remember?” Marinette asked. 

“Well, um-“

A ring broke out through the awkward silence that had set in and Alya checked her phone. 

“Sorry, it’s the Ladyblog,” her eyes widened. “People are saying that there’s a bank heist in progress going on on the other side of the city!”

Marinette smiled and called for Tikki, who flew back into the room with the other kwamis in toe. 

“Well?” She asked. “What are we waiting for? Tikki, Transform me! We’ve got a bank heist to thwart,” she said with a grin before climbing out onto the balcony and swung off off towards the bank with the other now transformed heroes shortly behind. 

The heroes arrived on the scene just in time to watch as Ladybug catapulted herself through one of the stainglass windows. Unsure of how to proceed, the heroes waited for a moment, at which point a parade of hostages from inside the bank came running out the front door. 

“What happened?” Adrien asked one of the civilians running past. 

“Ladybug convinced them to let us go!”

“Where is Ladybug now?”

“Still inside. She didn’t look so good. Maybe she’s hurt!” 

Adrien thanked them before turning back to the others. “Marinette said her memories were coming back like the dreams she had before. If she fell unconscious in front of the robbers she’ll be completely defenseless!”

“Then there’s no time to loose!” Alya announced and the heroes burst into the building and saw Ladybug unconscious on the floor in front of one of the robbers. 

“Heroes of Paris!” The robber exclaimed. 

“Release Ladybug immediately!”

“No-“

“No?!” Nino shouted, “Release her!”

“No, you don’t-“

The heroes launched towards the robbers and moved to fight when Marinette jerked awake and jumped to her feet. 

“Woah woah woah!” She shouted, holding out her arms to keep a distance between the heroes and robbers. 

“Ladybug? What happened?”

“Powernap.”

“…What?”

“Powernap. Just what I needed.”

“You weren’t being held hostage?” Nino asked.

“Hostage? No. I was feeling a bit drowsy so I asked Jason to keep watch until I came to.”

“Jason?”

Marinette nodded and gestured to the robber. “Thanks again Jason. Now, where were we?”

“My wife-“

“Ah yes, you’re wife.”

“I’m sorry,” Alya interrupted. “I’m confused. What is going on exactly?”

“Jason’s wife has been taken hostage to blackmail him into robbing the bank.” 

“They sent me a video of her being tied up somewhere in water,” Jason sobbed. “They said I had six hours to rob this bank or they let her drown.”

Marinette grabbed his hand. “It’s alright Jason, we’ll save her.” She turned to the heroes. “I have a plan. Trust me?”

“Always,” Alya replied with a grin. “What do you need us to do?”

“First we need someone to explain the situation to the police and stay with Jason. Nino?”

“On it,” he said with a smile before taking off out the doors, reassuring Jason that everything would be okay.

“Next we gotta find out where they’re keeping Jason’s wife. I already have an idea.”

“No time to waste,” Chloé said and Marinette smiled softly before leading the heroes out the door. 

They found the group holding Jason’s wife in an abandoned building by the Seine. The heroes were able to get the location of where they were keeping her in enough time and had her on her way to the hospital within an hour to be treated for hypothermia, with Jason on his way to meet them there, absolved from all charges. 

“Not bad for a days work,” Marinette said as she threw her spotted object into the air. “Miraculous ladybug!”

Once any damages had been repaired, Marinette stumbled a few steps, her eyes glazed. 

“Are you alright?” Chloé asked and Marinette nodded. 

“Just tired,” Marinette replied wearily. “I guess I’m just not used to being Ladybug again quite yet-“ she said, stumbling again and Chloé barely caught her before her head hit the floor. “I think I just need to close my eyes for a moment, if that’s alright with you.”

“Hey,” Chloé said shaking her gently. “Don’t fall asleep.”

“I remember you,” Marinette said softly and Chloé’s eyes widened. 

“What did you say?”

Marinette’s eyes fluttered shut and Chloé looked up to Adrien, who had been watching the whole encounter silently. 

Adrien cleared her throat, “I know we’re kind of in a weird situation right now…I don’t want to loose your friendship.”

“Or I you,” Chloé said sincerely.

“And look, if she chooses you…”

“She won’t,” Chloé admitted, both to him as well as herself. 

“You don’t know that.”

“Oh please Adrien. My time with her was in-between dreams of being soulmates with the Chat Noir holders. That and when she had the literal powers of a god. She wasn’t in her right mind.”

“Chloé…”

“I should go, my father will be worried about me,” she said and stood quickly before leaping out the window of the abandoned building and ran off towards her home. At that moment, Marinette gasped awake.”

“Chloé! She’s awake!” Adrien shouted after her but she didn’t turn back. “Marinette?” He asked kneeling down text to her, “are you alright?”

————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

Chloé had gone home like she had told Adrien, but instead of going in, she had spent the last hour or two on the rooftop, watching the sun go down over the city. 

Distracted by the sunset. She allowed her mind to drift to what had been happening the past few weeks. 

Chloé thinks she’s been unconsciously in love with Marinette for a long time. Finding out that she and Chloé’s idol ladybug were one in the same just helped her figure it out. 

When she had been given the Bee miraculous, that was the first time that Marinette had really seen her, seen underneath the cold facade she hid behind. 

Being Queen Bee had helped Chloé come into herself, allowed her to accept who she was and who she wanted to be. More than anything, she wanted to help people, and she wanted to do it alongside the other heroes of Paris, including Marinette, whether their relationship was romantic or platonic. 

A drop of wanter landed on the underpart of her eye, another on her nose. Within a minute, there was a downpour and she entered her family’s apartment soaking wet. 

Checking with the butler Jean, Chloé learned that her parents were out to a fancy dinner and she was on her own for the night. Chloé gave the butler the night off, saying that she would call for takeout and stay in for the night, maybe watch some Netflix. Jean none and moved to leave when he turned back. 

“May I just say Miss Chloé, I have seen a change in you over the past few weeks. You’ve really come into yourself.”

“Thank you,” Chloé said, turning towards her room. 

“And I want to tell you that who you love makes no difference to me, and that I am proud of you.”

Chloé whipped around, jaw dropped. “How did you-“

“I’ve had my suspicions for a while.”

“Do my parents…”

“Not to my knowledge. But I believe them to be decent people at heart, and if they love you, it should not matter to them either.”

“I…um…”

“Mademoiselle, if I may say so, you’ve been sad as of late. I want you to know that it will not last forever, that you will find happiness, and that I am grateful for what you and your friends have done for this city. You have saved us time and time again. Thank you.”

“No thank you,” Chloé said, tears in her eyes. “Truly,” she added before hugging him tightly. “You’ve taken such good care of me. Thank you.”

“And I always will,” Jean said softly. “Now go rest, you deserve it.”

“You too,” Chloé said, watching as the door closed behind him, making the apartment seem very small.

After ordering food, Chloé took a shower to warm up, and finished just in time to hear the ring of the delivery person arriving downstairs. 

Chloé tried to sit in the dining room, but she felt too alone and retreated with her food to her bedroom, where Pollen was passed out on one of her pillows. 

“I hope you don’t mind,” Chloé murmured as the kwami stirred. 

“Not at all Chloé, I love your company.”

“Can I get you anything?”

“Could I possibly have a snack? Being transformed for so long really made me tired.”

“I’ll get you some crackers and honey. Maybe we could watch something?”

Pollen smiled largely. “Sounds great!” And Chloé grinned as she walked out of the room. 

When she got to the kitchen, she found they were completely out of honey. 

“I’m sorry Pollen!” She called out. “We’re all out of honey, but I did find some fruit to go with the crackers!” She grabbed a plate and started walking back to her room. “I promise I’ll get some honey first thing in the morning when the shops-“

The window in her room was open, the strength of the the wind and rain making her curtains blow around wildly. 

Entering her room fully, her gaze landed on a figure standing in the open window. 

Ladybug.

Marinette. 

Same thing. 

“Hi,” Marinette said softly. 

“It took a a moment for Chloé to get over her shock. 

“You’re soaking wet,” she said, unsure of what else she could say. 

“Sorry,” Marinette replied, quickly shutting the windows before turning back to her. “I uh-“

“Why are you here?”

“I remember you.”

She had said that before. 

Chloé’s heart pounded. “What?”

“I remember you,” she repeated, shaking slightly in her Ladybug suit, but not because of the cold. 

“What do you remember?” Chloé asked. 

“I remember the fight against Hawkmoth, being akumatized, my dreams, Alya, Nino, and you you getting your miraculouses, Master Fu, being injured…”

“And after that?”

“I remember…strange thing that I can’t quite explain. I remember feeling like I was everywhere at once. I remember the ocean, the jungle, mountains…I remember, what I remember doesn’t make sense.”

“It will,” Chloé assured. 

“I’m not sure if that’s true. But out of all the impossibility I remember after being hurt, there’s one thing that makes sense to me.”

Chloé couldn’t handle holding Marinette’s gaze and instead looked down at her feet. 

“And what is that?” She asked, desperate for the answer. 

Marinette took a step forward, a trail of dripping water following behind her. 

“You.”

Chloé was sure she had finally lost her mind as there was no way what Marinette had just said had come from anywhere else but her wildest dreams. 

Marinette took another step forward. “Did you here what I said?”

“I did, I was just sure that it was in my imagination.”

Marinette was close enough now to cup Chloé’s cheek in a gloved hand.

“You don’t think this is real?”

Chloé shook her head. “No, but it’s the nicest dream I’ve ever had.”

Marinette closed all distance between them besides a hair’s width. “You think this is a dream?”

Chloé didn’t dare move, not even to nod in response. 

“One I never want to wake up from,” she admitted. 

Marinette’s lips met hers in a light kiss that sent a trail of fire across her skin. 

Ever so slowly, Marinette pulled back, just enough for their separate, but close enough that they could feel each other’s breath. 

“You still so sure you’re sleeping?”

“How could I be anything but?” 

Marinette leaned in again for a painfully slow kiss, like they had all the time in the world. When they parted this time, Chloé opened her eyes to see Marinette released from her transformation. 

“And now?”

Chloé trailed her finders through Marinette’s hair. 

“I think I still need some convincing,” she teased and Marinette crashed her lips back to hers in a bruising kiss that made sure Chloé knew she was awake. 

At that realization, Chloé couldn’t help but smile into the kiss and loose herself in the beauty that was Marinette Dupain-Cheng.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the first fanfiction I have ever finished. It was an interesting journey where I started with one story in mind and ended up with a completely different one halfway through. I hope everyone enjoyed this story. I may or may not be convinced into writing a sequel if enough people ask for it.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you like this!


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